


I Know This Hurts (It Was Meant To)

by dancinbutterfly



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bondage, Bondage and Discipline, Cinderella Elements, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Dom/sub, Dom/sub Play, Dominance, Flogging, Heavy BDSM, Hiatus-Era fic, Identity Reveal, M/M, Oral Sex, Safe Sane and Consensual, Safewords, Secret Identity, So many more tags I will come back and get to, Submission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-22 12:54:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 68,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13167345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: Pete feels like the prince trying to catch up with his kinky CinderDom, with a blindfold in the place of a glass slipper.AKA the Bondage Pete fic





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yeaaaaah. I'm getting this back up after...idk, 2ish years of having it locked? It'll all be unlocked on LJ by NYE and completely uploaded here on AO3 at the same time. Till then, I'll be posting chapters when I get a free minute.

Pete’s face hurts. That’s not too surprising, considering how many times he slammed it into that guy’s fist, but still. He hisses and smacks Gabe’s hand away because seriously, all right? Ow. 

“Motherfuck, man, leave it alone.”

“You’re, like, dripping blood all the fuck over,” Gabe snaps. He pokes at Pete’s face again with the obnoxious brown paper towel Gabe soaked in the bathroom. It stings and kind of reminds Pete of elementary school – neither of which is a good thing. 

“Maybe I want to be dripping blood.” He wipes some off his cheek with his fingers. It hurts less when he’s the one touching it. Then he flicks the blood at Gabe, who sputters and glares.

“Just fucking awesome, Wentz.” Gabe rubs at his shirt with the paper towel for a second or two, and then sighs. “I didn’t like this shirt or anything.”

“It’s an ugly shirt.” It’s not, but whatever. Pete doesn’t actually care. He just doesn’t want to be here, waiting to get triaged at the fucking ER where anyone with a camera-phone can snap a photo of his face looking like this. 

“You’re getting me a new one,” Gabe says and tries to wipe the blood away from Pete’s eyes again, which is one of many reasons why Pete loves the fucker. He lets him this time because he hurts, and he’s tired. As weirdly good as it felt when he was busy fighting that guy, it’s not so much fun now. 

Pete can feel his pulse beating in his nose and cheekbones. The sensation’s making him a little dizzy. It’s like his heart has moved up and is trying to take over his brain. He wishes he had a piece of paper or something to write that thought down, because maybe it could be something. He’s not sure. It doesn’t matter, because it’s not like he can send it to Patrick right now anyway. 

Gabe presses a little too hard on the side of Pete’s nose. There’s a wave of pain. The ensuing nausea that follows it reminds him a little of getting kneed in the balls, and he moans. 

“Freak,” Gabe remarks, with a small laugh. Pete would shove him, but he doesn’t want to jostle his face anymore. “You know, next time you want to hurt yourself, you should make sure you have a safe word.”

“Safe word,” Pete repeats.

“Yeah. You know, like a fetish thing. You should go to one of those crazy leather parties, next time you’re looking for a world of pain, man,” Gabe sighs, dabbing away more blood, this time from the side of Pete’s neck. “Then I won’t have to clean up after you, and you’ll at least get an orgasm out of it.”

Pete must have lost a lot more blood than he thought, because that actually makes sense. But then a nurse calls them back, and Pete forgets Gabe’s smartass comment in favor of focusing on explaining how, exactly, his face got all fucked up. 

It’s an exercise in improvisation, coming up with something that doesn’t mention the fact that he provoked a fight with a guy a foot taller than himself, just to feel something. The nurse doesn’t believe a word. Pete doesn’t blame her. He wouldn’t believe him either. 

By the time she’s gotten him into a room, onto one of those clean white hospital beds, Gabe seems to be upset and even a little angry. It’s weird, since Pete hasn’t actually seen the guy get angry or upset the entire time he’s known him. It’s also strange because, at the time, when that meaty fuck at the bar was hitting Pete, Gabe had been loud, mouthy, encouraging guy. The sudden shift to almost-normal and quiet he’s suddenly had is just not Gabe.

The quiet gets to Pete pretty quickly. Getting away from the quiet outside was the whole point of picking a fight. He drops his head back on the insufficient pillow and glares at Gabe. “Motherfucker, what?”

“I don’t know,” Gabe says with a shrug. “She thinks your nose is broken, dude.”

“Yeah? And?”

“And I hate to say this, but maybe you should chill out, man.” 

Gabe really does look like he hates to say it. That would be why Pete tends to call Gabe and not, oh, anyone else lately. If Gabe’s saying it, then he’s probably pretty far off the fucking deep end. Then again, Pete’s kind of been heading there since before Fall Out Boy officially went on hiatus.

Tonight’s been good though, mess aside. Pete had even felt good for a little while there, brain whited out with pure pain and zero thought. “I kind of liked it.”

Gabe frowns. He’s got to stop doing that. It’s creeping Pete out. “What?”

“It was like, satisfying or something. You know, like being Ed Norton in Fight Club.” Pete smiles and then stops when the action hurts his whole face. “Without the multiple personality disorder.” It is possibly the only kind of crazy he isn’t.

Gabe just shrugs but he looks weirded out, which makes Pete feel like a complete freakazoid, more so even than usual. Weirding out Gabe is like having a sex question so bizarre, Dan Savage doesn’t know what to do with you. It shouldn’t technically be possible.

So he pushes it out of his mind. He says thank you when the doctor gives him Percocet before resetting his nose, which is just dislocated, not broken. He lets Gabe drive him home and he throws the pictures they took with his phone up on Twitter before someone from the waiting room can do it. Then he takes as much of his shiny new pain prescription as he’s allowed and crashes out. 

He ignores tweets about his face and doesn’t answer his emails or phone because really, he knows. He does. He doesn’t need a fucking lecture from anyone else, thanks. And, on the off chance that Patrick’s looked out of his shell and onto the internet, then Pete really doesn’t want to hear it. They haven’t talked that often in the last month or so, and Pete doesn’t want their first real hiatus conversation to be a lecture. 

Pete’s good to spend most of the next few days floating on a medically sanctioned high instead. He mostly hangs out on the couch watching TV with Hemmy flopped across his stomach. 

About two days in and halfway through his bottle of Vicodin, Pete stumbles across a Secret Diary of a Call Girl marathon on BBC America. He stops because the girl is hot and the guy is okay, but they both open their mouths and speak with accents that increase their hotness factors by a power of about five. Also, Pete’s never really been able to look away when there’s sex involved. He zones in and out for the first couple of episodes, right up to the one where the hooker’s accountant wants her to play Mistress for him.

He watches that episode as awake as he can be, considering his meds, and is shocked at how fucking hot it is. The guy being dominated isn’t really that good looking – he’s old and overweight and generally unappealing. It doesn’t seem to matter though, because Pete spends the whole half hour feeling like he’s coming out of his skin at the idea of someone being abused like that. 

He doesn’t get off to it because the Vicodin doesn’t really let him. But he stews on it, Gabe’s suggestion echoing around in his head as the bruises on his face fade to green and yellow, and the scabs tighten. He thinks about what it would be like to be the one on his knees, about pain in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, so that he doesn’t have to claw the hurt out of himself. He keeps coming back to the way his brain shut down when he’d realized that he had no control over the fight. Pete spends hours trying to imagine what that kind of surrender would feel like in a scenario involving pleasure instead of pain, writing, trying to sort it out. All he really concludes is that he fucking _wants_. 

It’s all vague blurry images - impressions of the bondage he’s seen in movies and on TV - but it leaves him aching. Pete cuts back on his pain meds way sooner than he should because the whole _being turned on but not able to come_ thing is killing him. His face feels like raw hamburger, but when he finally gets off it’s like being hit all over again minus the blood and the trip to the hospital. It makes him wonder how he made it thirty fucking years without seriously considering this before. 

When he’s able to smile without agony, Pete calls Gabe. He counts the rings, a little nervous, but mostly so cagey and stir crazy that the nerves don’t register.

“He lives!” Gabe laughs. 

Thank fuck he sounds like the Gabe Pete knows again. Maybe it’s because Gabe’s not looking at Pete’s face all covered in blood; the weird out variable should be gone. It makes what he’s going to ask next so much easier. 

“Mostly,” Pete agrees, then takes a deep breath and goes for casual. “Hey, so I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

“What’d I say?” Gabe sounds lost. That’s not a new state though. They’re both so in their own worlds that they get wires crossed sometimes.

“About me looking for hurt and the fetish thing.” Pete pauses and wishes that this were a landline, with one of those twisty chords that he could wrap around and around his finger, just to give him something to do with his hands while he tried to gather his nerve. He can’t though so he just blurts out, “You don’t know where I could do that, do you?” 

There’s a beat of silence where Pete thinks his cell service might have dropped. It’s possible that Gabe’s gone through a tunnel or into an elevator or something. Or just freaked out and dropped the phone. He really he doubts it’s that, though. He hopes anyway. “Gabe?”

“Yeah, hey, I’m here. I’m just trying to think of when and where. Can I call you right back? I gotta call some people.”

“Sure.”

“Okay cool. Keep your phone on.”

It takes Gabe about four hours to get back with him. Pete probably could’ve done digging on Google faster. But Gabe is second only to Mikey Way in connections and, despite conventional wisdom, Pete trusts him. 

“So I found a few things but the best option is a party at this place, Passive Arts, out by LAX in two weeks,” Gabe says when he calls back. “Word is, they have a strict ‘no camera’ policy to go with the fully equipped dungeon. It sounds cool.”

Pete laughs. “The fucking cobra strikes again, man.”

“With unfailing accuracy, bitch. I’m emailing you the details. Let me know if you decide to take a slide down the rabbit hole. I’ll drive you. I’ve always wanted to be a puppy for a night.”

“You make me look normal,” Pete laughs but he kind of wonders what that would be like, on his knees, his head in someone’s leg the way Hemmy does when he wants to cuddle. Gabe’s probably just being Gabe and fucking with him. That’s probably it. He doesn’t rush to his computer when they hang up but he maybe refreshes his email a few more times than he would normally, until the information Gabe sends him comes through.

~*~*~ 

Two weeks is a long time to think. It’s longer when in possession of the internet and Gabe’s credit card number to buy BDSM porn with. Pete sees things he’s joked about with his friends, but never actually looked at before. There’s bondage and whippings, floggings and gags, black leather and latex, and overdone acting that makes his stint in the movies look Oscar-worthy. 

The best stuff scares the crap out of him. But in the good way; the way he used to feel back in the van days, before people knew who they were and knew the words to their songs. It was the kind of rush he used to get going on stage for the first time in front of a hostile crowd inclined towards heckling and throwing shit that he had to win over. It’s an energized sort of fear that makes him slightly giddy for the party to happen, so he can try it, already. 

An hour before Gabe’s supposed to pick him up, Pete’s got the phone wedged under his ear as he stands in front of his closet, lost. He owns a fucking clothing company and he has nothing to wear. 

“You expect me to believe you don’t have leather pants?” Gabe snorts.

“I don’t. You do.”

“Oh, right.”

“The website said you can’t wear sneakers or street clothes. ” He flicks through a few hangers and tilts his head so that the phone is pressed tighter between his ear and his shoulder. “Do you think I could wear that suit I wore to the VMAs?”

“I don’t know how this shit works. You could probably wear the nun outfit if you want to.” 

“I’m pretty sure that’s not actually my scene.”

“Yeah, but black is slimming.” 

Pete stares around his closet. It’s bigger than his childhood bedroom and a black suit is the only thing he can find? It’s kind of pathetic. He really did think he was edgier than this. “I’m not gonna wear the jacket.”

“Wear Hemmy’s collar with it. Throw a dog collar on any outfit and it’s instantly goth.” 

“Reason number seventy five why I’m not letting you design anything for Clan.”

He doesn’t wear a jacket or Hemmy’s collar. He does put on eyeliner though, for the first time in, like, two years. In a black dress shirt and slacks he looks more like he’s going to work in an office than to a fucking fetish party, but whatever. His face is almost back to normal and he knows he looks good. And if paps spot him on the way there, he’ll more than pass for normal.

Gabe looks fucking ridiculous. He’s in leather – pants, vest, and boots – and a dog collar with a D ring that looks like he bought it at PetSmart. Pete can’t stop laughing every time he looks at him so he spends most of the ride down from the hills looking out the window. 

It’s like any of a thousand parties Pete’s been to except for the dungeon furniture. And the people on leashes or tied up or being spanked or fucking. Well, not so much the sex. That’s not that different. 

Gabe finds a woman about five minutes after they get there, which isn’t that different either. She’s half his size and way curvier than his normal type. When she hooks her finger in the ring of his collar, that doesn’t seem to matter to Gabe because he lets her drag him off anyway. Pete watches them go and chuckles, mostly relieved that he can explore on his own. 

Pete’s not sure where to start exactly so he stalks a few people in interesting outfits. He lingers on the edges of couples and threesomes playing, until he ends up in a proper dungeon with walls painted blood red and a large mirror mounted on one wall, like the kind in the dance studio he used to visit Ashlee at. On the far side of the room, a girl is strapped face down on what looks like a rack, her back striped as red as the walls. He watches the man she’s with crack a whip across her skin, pausing to kiss her and sooth his hand over her abused back. 

Pete can’t look away. He feels fucking breathless at the realization that he would give pretty much anything to trade places with her. He stumbles back against one of the walls, one with a mirror that reflects the room back, and watches them.

“This your first time?” The question startles Pete and he turns to face a woman his mom’s age. Her graying blonde hair is piled up on top of her head, and her eye shadow matches the green corset that makes her waist so tiny he could meet his hands around it. 

On her bare, slightly saggy arm is an armband like the ones the My Chem guys used to wear. Only instead of having a circle of guns, it has the letters DM - for Dungeon Mistress. There was a whole section on them, the staff policing the party, but Pete couldn’t really get over how they sounded like a title for a D&D character, like paladin or mage. He vaguely remembers getting distracted and calling Mikey about that pen and paper game they’ve been playing off and on since like 2006, and they’d spent the call trying to figure out where they left off until about two in the morning. 

It doesn’t seem so ridiculous anymore. The girl is limp and the man is taking off her restraints. She sags into his arms, and he holds her close and half carries her out of the room. Pete watches, slightly bug eyed until they’re gone, then laughs. “Is it that obvious?” he ask with what he hopes is an easy smile.

“I’ve been watching you for an hour or so. The ‘oh my god, is that really happening?’ expression gives you away.”

Pete shrugs. “It just looks intense.”

“It is. Do you want to try it?” she asks, like she’s asking if he wants a go at a new video game or something. She really is disturbingly old, like mid-fifties at the youngest. She’s got a maternal air that makes Pete feel nervous in a way the whips and chains can’t touch.

“Uh, yeah. You offering to teach me?” He’s only half kidding. She looks like the kink version of those old tech guys who hung around shows, the ones who had played gigs with everyone. They’re not always the best smelling, and sometimes they were drunk off their faces, but they have worlds of experience. She looks like she’d be a less drunk, less smelly, fetish equivalent. 

She shakes her head. “I don’t think I’m your type, handsome. Besides, I’m working at the moment. Got to keep you sick freaks safe.” 

Pete gives her a wink. “Noble.”

“Isn’t it?” she laughs. “But if you go over there,” she waves in the direction of a leather covered bench. “And kneel down on the prayer bench facing the wall away from the mirror, I’ll go find someone for you.” She gives him an appraising look, the way his mom used to check meat at the supermarket. “I’m pretty sure I know someone who can give you what you’re looking for.” She looks into his face like she’s looking through him. “You don’t mind if it’s a man, do you? I saw a regular watching you.”

Pete licks his lips and nods. “I don’t know. It’s been awhile, I just… there’s all this noise in my head all the time and if you think this guy can shut it up then, yeah, sure, I guess.” 

She’s smiling at him. Beaming, even. “Go over there,” she points again. Her fingernails are green, too. “And wait. If you’re good, maybe he’ll want to play with you.”

An arc of heat shoots through Pete’s entire fucking body. It makes him shudder, and leaves him twitchy and nervous. But he goes because, nerves aside, he’s excited. He’s done a ton of crazy shit in his life, but he’s never done this.

The bench looks like it could’ve come out of a church, with one of those little padded kneeling things. Only, unlike in church, it’s covered in black leather. It’s attached to a bench that’s also leather that would be so easy to drape himself across. 

Pete sinks to his knees and stares at the red wall, feeling impatient as soon as he hits the bench. He’s not good with waiting. Worse, he can hear people walking through the room, looking at him, and leaving again. And he doesn’t know how long he’s supposed to just stay there and wait, before he should give up on the green DM’s mystery Dom and move the fuck on. 

He’s fidgety, and ready to say ‘screw it’ and get up, when a hand comes to rest on the back of his neck. It’s a shock he wasn’t expecting and Pete jumps a little. But the hand is warm and firm, and it squeezes once before a male voice says “Don’t turn around.”

Which is, naturally, what Pete tries to do. Contrariness is a fucking reflex, but the guy catches his head in both hands, his fingers digging into Pete’s face, stopping him. Pete’s breath catches because it hurts a little. Also, because the guy leans over and murmurs low and smooth into his ear, “What did I just say?”

Pete’s brain short circuits because hell-fucking-o the guy has a hot voice. It maybe even reminds him a little of Patrick only deeper, lower, rougher, and seriously, like sex in his ears. He doesn’t even have to think about it. “Don’t turn around,” he parrots back, but the fingers don’t loosen from where they’re pressing into his jaw and the hollow of his cheek. 

“Don’t turn around, what?”

Luckily, Pete’s actually gone through all that porn he bought. So he knows the answer to this one. “Don’t turn around, sir.”

The man’s hand lets go of his head and returns to his neck, stroking the hair at his nape instead. “Good boy,” he almost fucking purrs, before pressing a kiss to the spot back behind Pete’s ear. 

At which point Pete’s fairly sure he’s fucked.

“Tell me your name,” the man orders. His fingers are stroking up and down Pete’s neck and all he wants to do is look. But he gets the feeling that if he tries again, all this is all going to stop. Pete really needs it not to, so he keeps his eyes on the wall in front of him. 

“Pete.”

“And your safe word?”

Pete thinks about that for a second, because he doesn’t have one. So he grabs for the thing he’s going to want to think about the least during sex and blurts. “Hemmingway.”

The guy laughs, throaty and so fucking sexy, then he makes a soft approving noise. “All right. You say Hemmingway and we stop. No questions asked.”

“Okay.”

There a sharp pinch on the skin on the back of Pete’s neck. He hisses and jerks away a little, but the Dom standing behind doesn’t let him go far. “Okay, what now?”

“Okay, sir.”

“Better. You’re learning.”

Pete nods numbly when the hands leave him. His neck feels cold without them, and he wants to turn and ask him back. He could try. The Dom might not be looking. It just that Pete doesn’t _want_ to cheat. Not this.

He comes back and he has something this time. Pete doesn’t know what until the mask is sliding over his face. It’s a blackout mask like he’s used on tours a few times. The Dom pulls it down over his face and everything goes dark. Pete’s hit with a wave of panic that lasts about half a second until the man strokes his fingertips over his cheek.

“Do you need to safe word out?”

Pete shakes his head, not trusting himself to speak. It’s just a lot, is all. A lot of trust for someone he’s never seen, and a lot of faith in the whole Dungeon Master/Mistress system, and in himself that he actually wants this. He’s not really that generous with his trust most of the time, but he can’t let himself run. Need is pulsing through him too intensely. “No, sir.”

“Good boy. Just remember you can. Now take off your clothes.”

Pete’s never had an issue with nudity before. It’s not a big deal but usually it’s on his terms. This is different. There’s traffic through this room and he’s not really looking to put on a show. And also, who the fuck is this guy anyway? Instead he swallows hard and asks,“All the way?” then remembers to add, “Sir.”

“As far as you feel comfortable with.”

Pete’s fingers fumble with the buttons of his shirt. It’s harder to get undressed without looking, but the hands are helping him, sliding buttons out of their holes and pulling the fabric off Pete’s shoulders and down his arms. It’s possibly the most intimate thing Pete’s ever experienced, including sex with people he’s thought he was in love with. 

He tries to get the fly of his pants open, but as soon as he reaches for it, the Dom’s hands are there, doing it for him. The sound of the zipper is too loud to be real, considering the pulsing techno-goth-industrial mix that’s being piped through every room. 

“Stand up.”

Pete does, careful and slow because everything takes more consideration now that he’s effectively blind. The fingers are digging into his elbows, guiding him up, and then they’re on his hips.

“I was told you haven’t done this before. So, how far?” the voice asks, and he’s not just asking how naked Pete’s willing to get. Blunt thumbs rub steady circles into his hips, above the top of Pete’s pants, while he tries to find the words to respond.

There’s only one answer Pete can give. He’s always been an ‘all or nothing’ guy. “As far as it can go, sir.”

“You’re going to be so good for me,” the Dom practically purrs. He pulls Pete’s pants and boxers down in one move then takes his elbows again. “I can tell. Step out and kneel back down.”

The leather is cold against Pete’s knees, which he wasn’t expecting. None of this feels like he was expecting, especially not the warm hands on his skin, pushing and moving him so that he doesn’t have to do more than go. 

“Tell me what you need,” is the next order and that’s so much fucking harder than sit down, stand up, knee down, get naked. He has to find his own words for that. “Tell me why you’re here.”

“I don’t know, sir.”

A hand fists in Pete’s hair and pulls his head back so hard that it hurts. He can’t help the small noise that escapes as those lips press to his ear. “Lie to me again and I’ll make you regret it. You get one more chance to be honest with me.”

“I-“ Pete can’t think with his head pulled back like this. Which is actually what he wants. “I don’t want to think.”

“About what?”

“Anything.”

“What do you think you need to stop?”

Pete is floundering. He doesn’t know. This seems good. “More. More of this.”

“You need me to hurt you to make you stop?” The grip in his hair twists, pulling painfully.

“Yes, sir,” Pete pants, breathless and well on his way to hard just from this. He pulls a little, to make it hurt more, and the Dom shoves him face first down towards the bench.

“Lie down. Hands hanging over the edge.” 

Pete goes without fucking question. It's easy. It's so fucking easy, and it feels good to just do and not think. Maybe he makes a little noise in the back of his throat, when leaning down removes the Dom’s warm body from against his, but he doesn’t say anything for once because... because he hasn’t been told to, actually. 

He lets his arms dangle over the sides and tries to just breathe as soft leather wraps around his wrists. It pulls his arms down towards the floor. One at a time, he hears buckles snap shut, and then he’s bound. 

Pete tugs against the restraints, testing, wondering if his wrists are just tied together. His shoulders strain a little but no, they're connected to the legs of the bench. He's going nowhere fast. 

He yanks a few times. There’s give, enough that he could probably wrench free if he absolutely had to, but not enough that he could slide free. He’s fucking powerless and everything in him sort of uncoils with that realization. 

“Thought you’d love that. Everything’s just unlocked.” Hands stroke down his back, over his ass, and then back up to fist in his hair. “Gonna stripe you red, to go with all this black.” 

Pete shudders whether at the touch or the anticipation he’s not sure. There’s no way to know. There’s just too much to process. But he does whimper when the Dom lets go of his hair and backs away. 

There are a few heartbeats where he’s alone and tied and naked and aware of how utterly fucking vulnerable he is. The fear backs up on him for a second. He opens his mouth to say something, though he’s not sure what, when something soft brushes down his back. 

“What-“

The softness is gone. It’s replaced by a stinging sensation that crosses most of his back as whatever it is lands with a crack. Pete gasps and squeezes his eyes shut tight in the dark.

“Did I say you could talk?”

Pete shakes his head as another blow lands, as if to punctuate the command. 

“You can say ‘thank you, sir’, ‘please, sir’, or your safe word. Otherwise, I don’t want to hear you speak. Nod if you understand.”

Pete nods, almost grateful. He wouldn’t know what else to say anyway. Especially not as the blows start landing on his skin, cracking and sharp and making him twitch and writhe. 

He presses his face into the bench and tries to muffle his moans. His skin gets hotter and hotter until he feels like it’s burning but it doesn’t stop. Every impact echoes through his bones and into his brain, pushing out anything else but feeling. 

There’s no time to adjust though, the way he would to a steady pain like a headache. His Dom doesn’t set up any kind of pattern that Pete can fall into, that would leave him any more prepared. He doesn’t have a chance to think about anything, because he’s become a nerve to feel the impact and a muscle to brace for it. 

Just as randomly as each blow came, it stops. The A/C or central heat or whatever air is being pumped through the room prickles his skin and makes him hurt in a completely new way. Then those hands are stroking over the raised lines the blows made, and the pain is something Pete wants to drown in.

“You’re doing so well,” he murmurs. Pete could fall into that voice and live in that approval. It’s like being held, cocooned. “It’s just a flogger. You can take more, can’t you.”

It’s not really a question, but Pete nods again anyway. He nods until the next blow lands. The first impact on his sensitized back makes him cry out like he never has during sex, raw and overwhelmed. It’s too much and it’s not enough. 

Pete’s dizzy and hard and panting like he’s been running. Strikes land on his back and his ass and the backs of his thighs in no order, and with no warning or relief. He doesn’t know if he’s moving into them to get more or if he’s pulling away. He can’t process a concept that complicated. 

All Pete can do is take it and take it and take it. He drifts as the pain changes into something immutable and thick, that turns his mind white and his body inside out. It’s not until everything stops that he hears someone sobbing and realizes, with a sort of amazed delay, that it’s him.

His face is lifted off the bench and held between two strong palms, and thumbs stroke over his cheek bones. “Talk to me.” The command is soft and absolute.

“Please,” Pete chokes out. 

“Please what?”

“Sir,” he mumbles, bracing for another impact at the forgotten honorary. “Sir, please.”

Lips press to his forehead. “No, I meant what do you need? Tell me.”

Pete flounders. He doesn’t have the answer. Even if he did, he doesn’t have the words. “I don’t- Just please. Please, sir, please.”

“I’ve got you,” he says, but he lets go of Pete’s face, resting it gently on the bench. For a second, Pete thinks the man’s going to release him and a protest catches in the back of his throat. But instead there are lips on his back, tracing and agitating the welts. 

It’s a completely different kind of pain. This makes Pete feel like he’s being put back together one piece at a time. It hurts, but he still relaxes; melts into the bench so much that when a spit-slick finger slides inside him he doesn’t react with more than a gasp.

“Easy.” The Dom’s other hand presses down on Pete’s shoulders. He doesn’t push against it. “You were such a good boy for me.” Pete moans as a second finger pushes inside and that gets him a warm mouth on the base of his spine, over a particularly raw welt. “Good boys get rewards.”

Pete can’t remember the last time anyone thought he was good, like, really good. He can’t remember much of anything – what the world was like before he found this floating limbo space or what it’s like to be able to see. But it’s all right, because the Dom is crooking his fingers and light dances in Pete’s darkness. 

“You’re going to come just from this,” he says and Pete moans in answer. “Just from this, when I tell you to like the good boy you are.” 

He fucks in and out of Pete with two fingers and it shouldn’t be enough. It shouldn’t feel so fucking intense but it is. Everything’s louder, and more than it should be. He scissors his fingers and presses hard against Pete’s prostate and fuck, he’s dying. He’s dying and all he wants to do is come, but he can’t. 

He doesn’t have permission. 

Pete feels a heavy body drape over him, clothing dragging across his raw back. He bites back a whimper that he can’t define – pain from the contact or pleasure from the fucking – and pushes back. Then the fingers inside him twist up, pushing hard against just the right spot. Pete wants to scream his thanks when the mouth at his ear whispers, “Come.”

His brain fries like an overloaded computer, sparking and sizzling out his fucking ears as he comes. If he could see he’d be going blind, and everything drains away. It’s quiet in his head for the first time in fucking ever, but he’s pretty sure he broke something to get there.

The Dom is unbuckling the restraints and pulling him up before Pete realizes that he’s shaking. By the time he does, he’s gone from shaking to full out fucking crying like he’s a four year old with a skinned knee. He doesn’t know where it’s coming from, but he can’t stop. He sobs, harsh and ugly, into the shirt of this guy he doesn’t know, who just turned him inside out. 

Instead of pushing him away, like Pete probably would if some come-covered stranger started crying on him, the Dom rocks him. He runs a soothing hand through Pete’s hair and murmurs to him about how he did well, how he was so good. By the time he’s done, Pete feels enough like himself to feel embarrassed. 

“Sorry. I’m a fucking mess.” He rubs at the now wet mask and itches to take it off. 

The guy just shrugs, but he doesn’t push Pete away. He feels good, like Pete could fit here in his arms. “It happens, sometimes.”

“I…Are we done?” He pauses then adds, “Sir,” just in case they’re not. 

“Yes. I’m going to clean up the bench, get up, and when I tell you to, you’re going to count to twenty then you can take off the mask.”

“You’re leaving?”

The man nods against him. Pete feels slightly crushed. The sensation is not unlike when things finally ended when Jenae; or when Mikey told him he was getting married; or when he and Ashlee realized that they weren’t going to work as more than friends no matter how badly they both wanted it; or when he was twenty-two and he realized that he would never be able to have Patrick the way he wanted, not for real. It is the sensation of possibility being well and truly dead. It’s like freaking opportunity is dying. 

Pete tries to keep his voice from sounding plaintive. It doesn’t really work. “Why?”

The man’s voice gets even deeper and gruffer, and it scrapes his nerves like sandpaper. “Because I know who you are.”

Pete feels like he’s been kicked in the fucking chest. It’s almost suffocating, and Pete wants to scream. He wants to claw and beg and revert to childish me-first, gimme, I’ll-lick-this-cookie-so-you-can’t-have-it tactics. But if this guy knows, then what the fuck would be the point? He’s pretty much stopped fighting his reputation at this point in his life. 

He takes a deep breath, inhaling the sweat-smell of the man’s shirt, and composes himself. He goes for optimistic but it comes out a little pathetic. “I was good though right, sir?”

“You were amazing,” the Dom promises into his hair. His words are muffled and almost unintelligible, but Pete hears him. “You were fucking beautiful.” Then he tips Pete’s chin up and kisses him, slow and sweet. 

It stuns Pete in how foreign it is from the violence they’d exchanged, not minutes before. Pete sighs into his mouth until he pulls away. 

“Count to twenty,” he murmurs a few moments later, the words brushing against Pete’s lips. Then he’s gone.

Pete surprises himself when he actually counts, although he’s not sure why. Probably because he’s done everything else he was told. It’s like he’s becoming more and more himself with every number and by the time he gets to twenty, he feels like a Pete he recognizes. 

He counts fast though, and, when he’s done he pushes the blackout mask off and takes off in search of the green DM. She found him for Pete, maybe she knows where he is. He feels like the prince trying to catch up with his kinky CinderDom, with a blindfold in the place of a glass slipper. 

He’s slowed down a bit by having to put his clothes back on. Also by the sudden realization that he’s had an audience, probably the whole fucking time, because there are people lingering on the opposite side of the room against the mirror, like, smirking at him. Some of them are smirking, at least. Others are beaming at him like proud parents, or fixing him with jealous looks that have nothing to do with his fame or net income. 

Pete doesn’t do shame, so he pushes past them and out of that red room. He manages to find her in the medical room, supervising a guy who is getting something done to him with needles that would send Gerard Way right out of his fucking skin. She’s watching intently like she’s studying for a test later.

Pete touches her elbow and she jumps. Then she blinks her green-painted eyes at him and smiles. “You look better.”

Pete’s skin heats up at that. He can feel it in his face and neck and when his shirt brushes against a welt, which is constantly. “Yeah. But the guy-” 

“Good, isn’t he?” she asks, sounding notably smug. “I thought you’d like him.”

“He’s fucking amazing, only I didn’t get a name. Or a face. Or anything really.” Except everything he needed, and then some.

“I’ll tell him you’re looking for him, next time I see him,” she promises. “I’m Mistress Envy by the way,” she adds, suddenly realizing that she never gave Pete her name. “You’re Pete right? I’ve got a subscription to US Weekly,” Mistress Envy confesses, like _that_ is the dirty secret, not that she’s a freaking dominatrix on Friday nights. 

“Yeah and can you give him this?” Pete shoves a hand into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. He’s got a card in there somewhere. He pulls one out and hands it to her. “Tell him to call me, or email me, or fuck, anything.”

She gives him a knowing smile. Then she takes the card from him and slides it into her corset alongside her almost overflowing bosom. Pete makes himself not stare. It’s a feat, because really, they’re like a shelf. “I’ll do my best.”

Really, Pete can’t ask for anything more than that. He lingers to last call, waiting for Gabe and listening in on conversations around him with his eyes closed, trying to find that voice again. He’s not surprised when he doesn’t hear it, but he can’t help but be disappointed.

Gabe staggers out after the DJ turns off the music. His collar is gone and he looks like he just got hit by a truck. Pete can’t help but laugh. “Have fun?”

“Don’t even,” Gabe mutters, wincing as he fishes in the too-tight pockets of the leather pants for his keys. “Just don’t talk to me.”

“So, yes?”

“We are not talking about it,” Gabe retorts. He makes a zipping gesture across his lips. “Zero talking are we going to do.”

Pete feels too boneless to argue. He just follows Gabe to his car and curls up. His back and ass and legs all hurt everywhere the seat presses against him. He sinks into it and lets himself think about soothing hands and a warm voice the whole way home.

~*~*~

Pete feels remarkably sane for days after the Passive Arts party. The crazy, unhinged thing is still there, but for awhile there it’s not so loud. It’s like the quiet he found tied down and beaten followed him home. 

The memories of the hands and the pain and the voice stick with him, too. That part stalks him like a song stuck on repeat in his brain that would go away, if only he could play it again. Except it’s a metaphorical song that has him masturbating like a sex addict. 

So statistically, it’s not that surprising that Mikey Way calls him during one particularly good jerk. It’s what he’s been doing with most of his alone time lately. It doesn’t stop him from sounding breathless and annoyed when he answers. “What?”

“I interrupt something?” Mikey laughs. 

“Uh, nothing important,” Pete mumbles. Mikey’s amused chuckles are a pretty effective mood killer and he pulls his boxers back up. He tucks the phone into the crook of his shoulder and ear and rubs his hand on his leg. 

“Uh huh.”

“I was just, uh, you know. I was writing.” Pete crosses his fingers hoping that will help neutralize the lie.

“Dude, Pete, I remember what you sound like,” Mikey replies, then he chuckles again. “You got a friend over or just reliving whatever conquest you had at that party? You know Gabe won’t talk about it? He got all defensive when I asked. I’m dying to know what happened there.

“Party,” Pete echoes and really he should have known. That doesn’t stop the sharp feeling of embarrassment from spiking down his spine. “You know about that?”

“Was I not supposed to?”

Pete sighs and goes in search of real clothes. He feels weird talking to Mikey half-naked, even though there’s no way he can see Pete. Besides, he feels less vulnerable or something that way.

“It’s not really something I want out there, no.”

“Yeah okay,” Mikey drawls and Pete can mentally see him rolling his eyes all the way across the country. Pete doesn’t say anything and, after a few seconds, Mikey catches up. “Oh, fuck, seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Jesus. So it did go well then.”

“I…It was- fuck. I don’t know. I really can’t talk to you about it.” Or anyone, because how do you explain that one of the most painful experiences of your whole life was the one that made you feel the best ever? Mikey’s not really a big tattoo guy so that metaphor won’t even really work. 

“Right. No it’s cool. You want me to get Alicia? She knows way more about the scene than me. I’m still trying to learn the knots.”

Okay, Pete thinks shaking his head. That is way more information than Pete really needed about Mikey and Alicia’s sex life. “No. I really don’t want this spread around, Mikey.”

“Oh. Well, shit. Gabe should have said that when he called looking for the party in the first place. I wouldn’t have talked to…” Mikey sort of trails off.

“Talked to who?”

“Well, Alicia. Gerard and Lindsey. They didn’t know, though I know Lyn called around. Alicia was trying to get in touch with some people she knew in the LA scene, so I called Frank and, uh, I’m pretty sure Frank talked to Ray but I know he called Bob. Who, uh, probably called Patrick. No, no he did. He did, because he told Frank to tell me to tell you that Patrick said that you can still email him lyrics and shit if you want and I totally forgot about it. I know Gabe called Ross, too. He said something about a place in Vegas but we didn’t think you’d want to go out of state.”

Pete feels an unfamiliar heat in his face. He thinks it might be a blush. Huh. It’s a weird feeling, and really unpleasant. “So, everyone I know knows.”

“I don’t think anyone called Ashlee,” Mikey offers. 

“Oh, well, thanks for that,” Pete snaps, even though he is grateful. Pete talks to Ashlee as often as he does to any of his friends. More, maybe. He’s about a million times closer with her than most people would imagine being with their exes. But he really doesn’t need her to find out about this at the moment, especially not from one ex to another. “Did you spare my mom the details, too?”

“Come on, Pete, we found it for you. Mission accomplished. You’re welcome.”

“Yeah,” Pete sighs, resigning himself to the inevitable teasing, and making a mental note to call Patrick. It’s been too long since they talked and maybe Patrick-withdrawal is part of the problem. The relayed message is the perfect excuse to reach out like he’s been dying to, for what feels like forever but is actually probably only a month. 

“The power of the phone tree is almighty,” Mikey jokes, trying to lighten things up but the words jar Pete. 

“You think its almighty enough to find someone for me?”

“Depends. Who is it?”

“I met this guy at that party and now I can’t find him.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know.” 

Mikey’s quiet for a moment then exhales loudly in Pete’s ear. “Okay, what’s he look like?”

“I have no idea.” Pete sighs. He hates that he doesn’t know. He’s tried to imagine a thousand faces for his Dom and none of them have fit the voice that still rings in his head.

“What do you have?”

“I’ve got a voice.”

“Like in a recording?”

“In my head.”

“Then sorry, no. So far I can’t share your memories with people but as soon as we have the technology, I’ll totally get on that.” 

“How about someone with a dominatrix name?” Pete tries, because he hasn’t been able to find her either. She’s not a pro, or not enough of one that she’s on the internet, and she’s his only lead. “Do you think Alicia might know how to find someone by their scene name?”

Mikey makes a quiet noise in the back of his throat that means he’s thinking about it. “Maybe. You’ve got a name for this one though, right? I don’t need Jean Grey to dig in your head for details?”

“Ha ha. You’re fucking hilarious.”

“Flattery’ll get you nowhere. Name please?”

“Mistress Envy. Late fifties and she had a green theme going.”

“Cause of the envy.”

Oh, yeah, that makes sense now that Pete thinks about it. He’d been distracted by the whole ‘mysterious stranger making him come and cry within five seconds of each other’ thing. “Right. So, do you think you can find her? I gave her my info to give to him but I haven’t heard anything. I just…”

“Need to give in to your stalker instincts?”

“Okay, little bit, yeah. But I just really need to see him again. It’s driving me crazy, you know?”

Mikey and Alicia had a bit of an epic slightly stalker-y love themselves back in the beginning so Pete knows Mikey understands. “I’ll get back to you. This wasn’t why I called though, you know.”

“Why’d you call?”

“Fucked if I can remember.” Mikey sighs. “You’re very distracting with your mystery men and your kinky sex life.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Not really.” Mikey says, thoroughly unimpressed. “I know the name of the person I’m having awesome sex with. Do you?” 

“Shut up. I hate you.”

“You’re a fickle bitch, Wentz. I find her and you’ll love me all over again.” They talk for a little while longer, catching up and formulating a plan to find out what the hell happened to Gabe at the party, and then Mikey has to go. 

Pete doesn’t exactly forget about the conversation. He believes in the power of the Mikey Way phone tree but he’s trying really hard not to get his hopes up, so he focuses on the flood of email from Clandestine and Decaydance instead. Work is good. It’s clear, and easy, and he knows what he’s doing. 

Of course, his obsessive behavior doesn’t really stop just because it’s business and not pleasure. So suddenly he’s been bouncing around ideas for new Clan designs, and answering and writing emails for Decaydance for twelve hours. It’s not as satisfying as playing or writing lyrics, but it’s a good distraction and those have been hard to find lately. 

Pete only notices how long he’s been at it when Hemmy puts his face in his lap and whines in frustration. Pete takes him out for a run even though it’s dark o’clock. His community’s gated (which is the opposite of rock and roll if you ask Pete) so he hangs out outside. He lies in the grass on his front lawn, Hemmy’s leash wrapped around his wrist while it’s still dark out, and gets up when the sun is too bright to ignore. Hemmy is snoring beside him and Pete has to shake him a little before he clambers up and follows Pete inside. 

The email’s waiting for him when he’s gotten them both breakfast – a cereal bar for him, dog food for Hemmy. It’s the top new email of four and it’s the only one with an email address he doesn’t recognize. It’s from an ‘ssc84@hotmail.com’ and Pete almost deletes it. 

Well, Patrick’s always warning him about viruses and spam and all that shit. And there’s no subject in the header. But he backed everything up before he went for the run, so he lets his curiosity win out. It’s been serving him well lately. 

The contents are simple and direct, and they make Pete’s heart fucking stop. He’s going to buy Mikey Way a new Wii. And also, like, ten miles of rope for whatever it is he and Alicia are up to that needs knots. 

_you found me. if you want to meet again, be at the la power exchange party at passive arts on the 21st. go to the elizabethan room, strip, lie down on the bondage table, put on the blindfold, and wait for me. when you’re ready i'll come to you. follow all the instructions and get what you need, disobey any of them and i wont be there at all. your choice_

There’s no name closing out the missive. There’s no clue as to who the hell ssc84 is, but Pete doesn’t fucking care now that he’s got this. It’s a start. It’s a lead. And it’s fucking hot. He can’t begin to imagine what the hell his Dom would do with him like that but everything that flits across his brain makes him hard enough to cut a diamond. 

He reads the email about fifteen more times until it’s memorized. Then he hits reply and types two words in reply: _yes sir_. He’s still gross from the run and sleeping in the grass, so he hits send and makes a beeline for his shower. And maybe he grabs his bottle of lube on the way in. 

Not having to explain himself is one of the biggest perks of living alone, after almost ten years on a bus or a van. Being able to come screaming’s another one. Not having to share the hot water is pretty fucking amazing, too. When Pete’s finally done with his shower of almost an hour, he’s, unbelievably, able to sleep straight through the rest of the morning and into the afternoon and he dreams of a red room full of black leather.


	2. Chapter 2

Pete doesn’t find Envy at the LAPE party. He looks for her for a solid hour before he finally goes into the Elizabethan room. It’s weird; now that he’s finally this close to having what he wants again, he’s putting it off. 

He’s not sure why, when it’s been all he can think about for weeks. Nerves, maybe. Fear that it won’t be as good this time around, can’t possibly be. 

Also, it’s one thing to be naked in public. He’s fine with that. He’s dealt with pictures of his dick on the internet, for fuck’s sake. But there’s something about the idea of getting naked and lying still to wait for someone who may not come, who may let him down, that makes him break out in a cold sweat. 

He stares at the padded bondage table that his Dom must’ve been talking about, and wonders if he’s got that kind of faith. Maybe. Probably. He really hopes he does, because otherwise stripping down is going to end in the kind of embarrassment he’s not going to get over easy. He runs his hand over the nylon restraint and frowns for a long moment.

“You need some help with that?” The voice belongs to a man and for a second Pete thinks it might be him. Then he can skip the faith part and just meet him and move on. But it’s a heavy-set guy in his forties with a DM band on his arm, who is looking at him with absolutely zero recognition. 

“Uh, yeah. I got given some instructions.” He lifts a restraint to demonstrate exactly what kind of instructions they are. “I’m supposed to wait here for someone. But I’m gonna be blindfolded so…”

“So you don’t want anyone to touch you until your Mistress gets here,” the DM says, nodding in understanding. 

“Uh, Master actually but yeah. I don’t want anyone touching me while I wait for him. You guys do that, right? Make sure that people keep their hands off the merchandise.” He smiles at the DM with bravado he doesn’t actually feel and tilts his chin up a little, like he’s totally comfortable. 

The DM holds up his hand in the okay symbol, his thumb and index finger making a circle. “You give me one of these when he gets here. When you do, I’ll leave you two to your scene. Everyone else is hands off.”

“Thanks,” Pete says, feeling strangely winded. Like the act of asking took the breath from his lungs.

“Hey, we do what we can,” the DM says with a shrug. Then he walks over and stands against a wall, just like Mistress Envy had. 

It’s scary but in a familiar sort of way, like climbing onto a roller coaster he hasn’t ridden in ten years. A way that Pete’s starting to get used to, and is comfortable enough with to fish the blindfold out of his pocket and get to work on his clothes. Pete tries to focus on the memory of his Dom’s voice as he strips, groping for what he remembers. He doesn’t have any specifics. He fumbles for the way it made him feel as he toes out of his sneakers and socks and lets his shirt and pants pool on the ground but just out of reach. Then he slides the blindfold over his face and he really does remember. Like that it’s easy to lie down on his back and just breathe. 

Pete doesn’t know how long he waits. He knows it’s long enough to sing through the better part of Journey’s greatest hits in his head, but he doesn’t have an exact number. He’s acutely aware when someone jostles the table and heaves a sigh that’s audible. Then there’s weight braced against the table and that voice, that voice that has been haunting Pete, murmurs “You are so fucking good, I can’t believe it.”

It’s like every muscle in his body unlocks and he sags against the table. “Hey, step away from him,” the DM calls across the room, sounding like he’s moving closer. But Pete holds up his hand in an okay symbol and that’s the end of it.

Fingers stroke through the hair at crown of Pete’s head, smoothing his bangs over the top of the blackout mask. The relief is gone just that fast, and Pete’s fingers are gripping the edge of the table’s arm rests, hard. He wants to reach out, to touch what he’s been missing for days, but they’re clearly already in scene.

They’re in scene and he doesn’t have permission. He doesn’t have permission for anything, but Jesus fucking God he wants and he needs, so fucking much. He can’t remember how he functions like a normal person without this.

A please slips from his lips, choked and a little desperate. His hand lifts off the table for a minute before a strong hand grabs hold of his wrist.

“I’m going to strap you down now, Pete. You shouldn’t have to fight to be good for me. You remember your safe word?”

Pete nods, breathless and he hasn’t even done anything yet. “Yes sir.”

“Say it for me,” he orders, closing the first restraint around Pete’s wrist and tightening it so that he can’t lift his arm up. Not that he wants to, not anymore. 

“Hemmingway.”

He moves to the other side and “And what do you want me to give you tonight?”

“Everything. Anything you want, sir.” This is so easy. It’s easy to ask and just lie there while his Dom finishes restraining Pete, his ankles too this time. It’s like being held in a weird way, an extension of hands. “I just…I need-“

“What?” The backs of fingers trail over his cheek. “It’s okay. Tell me what you need.”

 _You_ , is the thought that Pete chokes back. He’s met him once before, once, and he knows he’s crazy but that level of insanity scares people off. He can’t have that. Not yet. “I need…I don’t know. I need it to hurt, burn.”

“Mmm. Hard burn or soft?”

“Hard,” Pete manages. He’s all or nothing, go big or go home, and he knows that his Dom can give him this if he wants to.

“Hard it is.”

“Turn off my brain,” Pete blurts, the words torn from him almost involuntarily. “I just need you to turn it off.”

A sharp backhand cracks across Pete’s face, stealing his breath. It burns and it makes him hard and he moans. “To remind you,” his Dom soothes. “Tell me who’re you asking.”

“Sir. Please, sir.”

“Good boy,” he murmurs, rubbing Pete’s stinging face with his hand. “Sir if you’re asking me for something I haven’t told you to do.”

“Just make it quiet again, sir.” He’s a little scared now that his Dom won’t do it. That he’s fucked everything up, like he always does, and that elusive serenity is going to stay just out of reach. 

“Breathe.” 

It’s such a simple order but Pete’s forgotten it somewhere in there. He takes deep breaths in, pacing them in time to the throbbing bass drifting through from the main part of the studio. 

His obedience earns him lips in his hair and warm skin pressing across his throat. Not pressing or choking, it’s just holding Pete like another restraint. It helps him relax again.

“That’s it. You just breathe and I’ll be right back.” He brushes Pete’s bangs across his forehead and then he’s gone. 

Pete focuses on the in and out of his lungs, like Andy’s tried to teach him for meditation a billion times, only this time it almost works. Sort of. A little. Mostly it’s focusing on what he could bring back with him – another flogger or something Pete doesn’t recognize – that Pete centers on. 

He drifts in the possibilities. There’s a little part of him that half hopes it’s a belt or something else that’ll leave him marked for days. There’s a bigger part that’s afraid, like he’s about to go on stage with a hostile crowd he’s going to have to turn around from scratch. But mostly there’s just the comforting fact that, whatever it is, he doesn’t have a choice in the matter.

First contact on his shoulder is a shock. A literal one, like opening a car door on a cold day. It makes Pete jerk but the straps on his wrists and ankles keep him down. He blinks behind the mask and gasps. 

“Isn’t that cool?” His Dom murmurs, his voice even deeper than usual making him sound distant and alien. “Violet wand.” Another zap and the press of cool glass on his skin. “They used to treat medical conditions with it.”

That is fascinating. No, really, Pete is sure he’d be fascinated, if weren’t for the fact that sparks sting him again, the moment the glass leaves his skin. It’s small, and focused, and it burns hot. His world shrinks to a tiny spot on his skin that hurts, hurts, hurts and feels so fucking good at the same time. 

“I got it with all these attachments. Different shapes and strengths.” The spark is gone as he speaks and Pete doesn’t try to guess what that’s going to mean. There’s no point and his brain is too busy screaming for more to care. “But this one is the one you need.”

The next contact is a blow. It’s sharp, electric and metallic at once, a hundred times more intense than the glass attachment. Pete’s whole body bows as strips of electrified wire sting his chest; one even catches his nipple and it makes his whole body hurt like nothing he’s ever imagined. His back bows off the table in shock and he lets out a strangled cry because he’s honestly never felt anything like it before. And there’s more, blow after blow like the flogger that leaves his skin tingling with pain and electric tension.

It goes on for what feels like forever. He batters Pete’s chest, his arms, his legs, and the surprisingly sensitive soles of his feet. He drags the strands up Pete’s inner thigh and shocks the delicate skin of his sac, and Pete is screaming.

People have to be watching. There’s no way he hasn’t drawn a crowd with all the noise he’s making. But he can’t stop. It’s like writing can be at its best, just pouring out of him beyond his control. His Dom hasn’t told him to be quiet, so filth and nonsense and everything but his safe word pour out of his mouth because he doesn’t want this to stop. He’s completely out of control, but he’s anchored by his pain and his bound limbs. 

Then, just like that, it stops. He’s panting and gasping like he’s run a mile. There’s a few seconds of nothing but air on his skin and then there’s five points of electricity raising the fine hair on Pete’s arms. 

“This one’s my favorite.” The voice is low and almost unintelligible in his ear. “Hold the attachment, you become the wand.” 

His fingertips trail up Pete’s arm, over his neck to his lips. It’s an electric kiss and Pete wants to cry. What the fuck is it about this that pushes him the edge of tears?

The little lightening bolts prickle over his skin, taking him down one level of pain at a time. “I think you’re done.”

“No, sir. I need some more. I’m fine, just-”

“No.” Electric fingers stroke Pete’s face and neck. It soothes him and breaks him at the same time. “You’re done.”

“I’m not, please. Please don’t. Don’t. I’m not. Don’t, please.” He leaves the sir off on purpose, praying for another blow. It doesn’t come.

The contact is gone. The voice is the only thing Pete has to hang on to, and it’s wrecking him.

“I’m proud of you,” he purrs and Pete is in pieces. “You got someone to look after you before I got here. That’s good. And you took it all. I think you should get a reward for being good for me.”

“No, I don’t-“

“Yes. You do. You deserve good things.” Lips kiss down Pete’s chest. He stops just over the bartskull tattoo. “Say you deserve good things.”

The words strangle Pete. They’re harder to get out than “sir” or “please” or even that first phone call to Gabe, looking for this. There’s a sharp sting to the side of his leg as his Dom slaps him.

“Say it.” He slaps Pete again. “I deserve good things.” Another slap. “Say it now.”

“I-I deserve good things,” Pete chokes out. He can feel a tear push its way passed his tightly closed eyelids and slide out the corner of his right eye to meet the fabric of his mask. He’s rewarded with a long lick downwards.

“Again.”

“I deserve good things.”

“Keep going until I tell you to stop,” he says, his breath fanning out hot over the head of Pete’s cock. It’s the best kind of tease. “You stop before I give you permission to and this ends. Now say it again.”

“I deserve good things,” Pete says again and a heartbeat later, he’s engulfed in hot, wet fucking heaven on earth. He wishes his hands were free so he could grab hair, wishes he had a name to call out but all he has is four words and he babbles them over and over like they’ll hold him up. They stop requiring thought after awhile, stop sounding like actual words, but he keeps repeating them - a mantra that’s burning its way into his brain along with the feel of that fucking mouth. 

He comes abruptly and without warning because he doesn’t have permission to say anything else. His voice catches on the word “deserve” as he comes, dragging it out into something with twenty-five syllables and he comes down on a sigh that is “good things”. He manages to keep saying it through aftershocks that leave his whole body twitching. He’s not sure how. 

“Such a good boy,” his Dom murmurs, stroking Pete’s thigh. His voice is rougher than before, no doubt the result of the blow job. It sounds even better to Pete, like brushed fucking silk or something. “You can stop now.”

It’s a relief he sinks into as his Dom moves from between his legs back up towards his head, so that he can comb his fingers through Pete’s hair. His throat hurts. He’s tired and he feels like he could sleep for a week, right here, tied up like this. He does drift, in fact, because he comes to later to a hand shaking his shoulder and he’s still strapped down.

“Hey, you’ve got to get up. They’re at last call,” his Dom says in a soft tone, working on the restraints as Pete blinks beneath the mask. He turns Pete’s face to the side with his palm and kisses him long and slow. “When I get you loose, count to fifty then get up.”

“What?” Pete feels dumb and fuzzy, like a bad hangover without the headache. 

“We’re done,” he says. “You’re going to count to fifty then take off your mask and get dressed.”

“But-“ Pete feels like the bottom’s dropped out of his stomach, through the table and onto the floor. “I mean, Jesus. You blew me and you can’t even let me see your face?” His right hand’s free now, and he reaches out and lands on an arm covered in fabric. “I just want you to stay.”

“No,” he sighs, rubbing Pete’s wrist then pulling his fingers loose of his shirt. But he kisses the Pete’s knuckles before returning his hand to the table. “You don’t want me to. And if you want to do this again, you won’t push this.” His tone is razor sharp and there’s zero room for argument. “Fifty, Pete.”

“You’re going to email me though, right? Fuck, you can’t just walk away from me again without a word.” He sounds desperate because he fucking _is_. He’s ready to beg so he pulls out the only thing he has. “Sir, please.”

“Mmm,” is the response as he works on the straps on Pete’s ankles. 

All that’s left is the restraint around his left wrist but he’s good to stay bound to the table forever if it’ll keep his Dom from going. “Mmm you will or mmm you’ll think about it?” 

“I will,” he promises. Then, just like he did last time, he kisses Pete slow and deep like he’s trying to crawl inside. Pete whimpers into his mouth, his hand digging into the edge of the table to keep from clinging and Pete tries to memorize the taste. Mint, mostly and something else; something that’s just him. Then he undoes the last strap and Pete’s left alone again.

Pete counts to a hundred because he’s not sure that he’s not crying. He might be. Everything’s so raw and inside out that he can’t be sure. He’s not ready to face himself until he hits triple digits anyway. 

Then he pulls off the mask and shrugs on his clothes. He feels raw and exposed, and he drives home in a stupor. He doesn’t shower or change, just kicks off his shoes and crawls into bed. He doesn’t sleep, just curls around Hemmy and drifts in the dark. 

~*~*~

It’s bad when Pete comes back to himself. It’s fucking horrible. It’s like there’s this sucking, gaping hole in him that’s pulling him through; like a black hole from the inside. It’s the exact opposite of the chaos that made him grope for a bottle of Ativan, but with a similar sadness that makes him want to sink in on himself and never get up.

He doesn’t get it. He felt good at the time. He felt practically fucking high. And the last time, when it was over, the peace had followed him back. Now it’s like the fact that he had it and now it’s gone is worse than never having it at all.

It makes him want to curl into a ball and fucking die. So he calls Patrick. Because he promised, after the Best Buy thing. Well, Patrick made him promise that if he ever felt a low even remotely like that again, Pete would call him first, before anything else. He’s done his best to stick to that over the last five years. It’s worked so far.

Patrick picks up on the first ring, even though it’s been about two months since they spoke. Because he’s Patrick. “Pete?”

“Hey. You wanna come over?”

There’s a pause where he thinks, even after everything, Patrick might say no. The point of the hiatus was a break, some time for everyone to breathe. Patrick’s breathing lately seems to require Pete not being around. But he doesn’t say no. “Sure. Now?”

“Yeah. Let yourself in. You’ve still got a key.”

“I’m across town. So it’ll probably be an hour.”

“Kay.” Pete drops his cell on the nightstand and takes a deep breath. He can deal for an hour. He lets Hemmy out in the backyard, crawls back into bed and closes his eyes against this fucking awful feeling in his chest and head.

He’s fallen into an empty buzzing mental state when Patrick gets there that’s just far enough from sleep to leave him feeling jangly and raw. He opens his eyes when a weight on the mattress shifts his body and he sort of rolls into him. Patrick’s wearing his glasses, a soft knit cap and a small concerned frown.

“Hey. You sick?”

“Heartsick.”

Patrick chuckles and rolls his eyes, but his face stays kind of grim. “Drama queen.” But Pete doesn’t smile back and Patrick gets serious fast. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Later. Can you just c’mere for now?” Pete mumbles, tugging Patrick’s wrist until he’s lying down on top of the covers. Patrick is perfect for snuggling, Pete’s always thought this. And, for once, he tolerates Pete commandeering his personal space without comment. He just lets Pete cling to him and hugs back. It’s fucking soothing, human contact, knowing that if he can’t have what he needs, at least he isn’t alone. 

“You going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Later,” Pete promises, burying his face in Patrick’s neck. He smells safe, and like home, and Jesus, he has missed him so fucking much. He didn’t even realize how much until he had him back. “Later.”

“Okay. Later. But you’re not getting out of it.”

“Nap time,” Pete declares, pressing his fingers to Patrick’s lips. He’s pretty sure he’ll actually be able to rest if Patrick’s here, and he doesn’t want to miss the chance. “Deep and meaningful conversation afterwards.”

“Bossy fuck,” Patrick mutters, settling beneath him. He doesn’t fight him. He knows how hard it is for Pete to rest.

Pete chokes out a laugh and squeezes Patrick tighter. It’d be funny if it weren’t so fucking sad. He breathes deep, imaging that Patrick’s arm slung over his shoulder is rope or leather or chains and that he’s anchored. It helps and when he drifts back off, he dreams but doesn’t remember any of them, and wakes up with dried tears in the corner of his eyes. 

He’s not holding Patrick anymore, either. Patrick’s still there, sitting next to Pete. He’s holding a glass of water so big it’s almost daunting, waiting for him. He didn’t know he owned glasses that big. He’s pretty sure Gabe bought it for him. Patrick holds it out to him moments after his eyes opened. “Drink it.”

Pete shakes his head and frowns. “Not thirsty.”

“Ask me how much I care, Pete.”

Pete smiles a little. “How much do you care?”

“Less that Dirty likes to shower. Drink it.”

Pete obeys, mostly because he’s still stuck in submissive mode and the act of an order is kind of comforting. It’s weird coming from Patrick, though. It’s not like Patrick hasn’t told him what to do before or anything, but it’s just odd in the new context. He’s not sure if he likes it. But he feels better when the water’s gone. 

“Better?”

Pete frowns into the empty glass. “Yeah.”

“Your voice sounded rough,” Patrick says with a shrug. “Now you can tell me what the hell’s going on.”

“So this was all a cunning plan.”

“Yep. Now, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.” 

Pete laughs and leans on Patrick. He loves the way he fits on Patrick’s shoulder and hates that he still needs to – lean on him that is. He was trying to stop. He was trying to be less codependent. That was reason ninety-five million why they were taking the hiatus. “You’re way squishier than Dr. No.” Pete sighs, though he has to admit, he’s not as squishy as he once was. He’s gotten positively bony since the last time Pete saw him.

“Fuck you, man. You’re not getting out of talking to me.”

Pete sighs. “Bob told you about the party thing, I guess.”

“The fetish thing? Yeah, I heard about it. I’m still not sure why I needed to hear it from the phone tree when you could’ve just called me.”

Pete sighs and shrugs against him. “It’s complicated.”

“What isn’t complicated with you Pete?” He nudges him with an elbow. “You can talk to me.”

That’s all the permission Pete needs for it spew out of him like a torrent of water through a burst dam. He starts at the hospital and he babbles straight through to the way he feels now, gutted. When he’s done he feels tired, but like at least some of his organs are back inside his body.

Patrick doesn’t say anything for a long time. He gets up, taking the cup with him, and comes back with more water, which he presses into Pete’s hand. Then he rests his elbows on his knees and sighs. “You’re a fucking reckless idiot. You know that right?”

Pete shrugs. “That’s not news.”

“I knew you were when Bob called me but I was hoping that you weren’t-“

“In too deep?”

“I was going to say addicted, but that works. Pete, you’re letting a stranger beat you with a fucking whip. Do you get how dangerous that is?”

Pete doesn’t say he doesn’t care. He doesn’t need to. It’s probably obvious all over his face. Patrick’s good enough at reading him that he shouldn’t need to say anything. The way Patrick’s shoulders droop prove him right.

“He’s someone you don’t know, that you don’t have the good sense to protect yourself with.”

“There are people watching. And he’s amazing.”

“Pete-“

“He fucking gets me, Patrick. He gets inside my head like nobody else ever has and makes the crazy stop. Not meds, not writing, not punching a wall, this guy.”

Patrick looks sick. He presses his fingers to his eyes under his glasses and when he looks up, he’s looking at Pete like it’s Pete that’s a stranger. Pete hates that. He doesn’t want Patrick to fucking revile him or something. 

He hands the glass back to Patrick and wraps his arms around himself. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what, Pete?”

“Like I’ve suddenly become someone different because I figured out my psychosis.”

“You haven’t figured out shit, Pete. I’ve done some reading and what you’ve told me you’re doing is like… varsity level kink and you’re a beginner. You’ve just found a new way to hurt yourself. Figuring out your psychosis would require real help, which you still won’t get.”

Pete shrugs and looks down at his comforter. He picks at it a little with a fingernail. “I don’t need it.”

“Are you kidding me? You’ve needed it since way before the overdose. That should’ve made it obvious, but it didn’t. So now you’re going out and getting yourself hurt on purpose, instead.”

“It’s good.”

“Yeah, it would be if you were healthy. But you’re not. You’re sick. You’ve been sick as long as I’ve known you, and it’s killing me that you won’t allow yourself to get well. You’d rather wallow in it.”

“You can just leave you know,” Pete whimpers, curling in on himself even tighter. This was a mistake. 

“Yeah, I can’t. I lost the ability to leave, like, ten years ago,” Patrick says and he sounds so fucking sad that Pete wants to crawl in a hole and just die. Then Patrick sighs and grabs him by the shoulder. The glass falls to the carpet and spills as Patrick pulls him into a hug. “I hate it when you do shit like this to yourself, man,” Patrick mumbles into his ear. “I fucking hate it because I can’t leave and I can’t make it better. I just have to watch.”

“I’m sorry.” Pete doesn’t apologize much but for this, for hurting Patrick like this, he has to. He fists his hands in the fabric of Patrick’s shirt and clings, a little afraid that if he lets go that Patrick will disappear just like his Dom.

“Me too,” Patrick sighs. He lifts a hand and strokes Pete’s neck. “You’ve got no idea.”

“For what?”

Patrick pauses his caress for a second, a stutter, before picking the rhythm back up. “Lots of things. Right now, for not being around.” He shrugs a shoulder under Pete. “Hey, you wanna watch TV?”

Pete nods and pulls back enough to fumble for the remote. They don’t even have to move, he’s got a flat screen on the opposite wall. The joys of being young and wealthy, Pete thinks wryly. “I think there’s a Millionaire Matchmaker marathon on Bravo.”

Patrick sighs and rolls his eyes, dropping back to rest against the pillows. “That show is awful.”

“If by awful, you mean awfully good, then you’re completely right. I agree. It’s awfully fucking good. And Patty is clearly a genius, and you just don’t believe in true love.”

“I believe in love,” Patrick says, not moving a muscle. He looks like he just stuck a fork in a socket or something.

Pete frowns and pokes him. “Okay, probably, but not true love. You need to fix that, ‘Trick,” he says as he ferrets for the remote. He hasn’t used it in awhile. “Because you make John Lennon’s ghost cry with your lack of faith in people and love.”

Patrick folds his arms over his chest and frowns at him, grumpy and Patrick-y and familiar. It makes Pete feel a million times better about life, the universe and everything. He only has to half crawl over Patrick to find the remote wedged between the nightstand and the far side of the bed. He clicks the TV onto Bravo and Patty Stanger’s spray-tanned face, then snuggles back into Patrick’s side. He could live there probably, if Patrick would let him. “Wuv,” Pete sighs. “Twu wuv will follow you fo’ evah.”

Patrick puts his entire hand over Pete’s face and shoves. Pete doesn’t move but he laughs and some of the painful tightness in his chest finally loosens. He still feels empty, hollowed out like the spoon-scraped inside of a pumpkin before you cut it into it to make it a Jack o’ Lantern. 

The fear that he’s going to fall into himself has eased up. He’s more stable, less tenuous in his own body, and his mind’s back to almost normal. Okay, no its not. But it’s livable. 

That’s pretty much standard with Patrick around. Even the worst day turns magically bearable again. He’s not sure why he’s been trying to stay away from him, now that he’s got him back. “Why haven’t I talked to you in two months?” Pete asks finally.

“Phone works both ways,” Patrick says, his chest rumbling under Pete’s ear. “You could’ve called me.”

“You could’ve called me, too.”

“Yeah, but you do the calling. That’s kind of how it works. You always do the calling.”

Pete would love to argue with that, but it’s true. Their whole friendship has pretty much been focused around Pete stalking Patrick. Obsessive texting and calling and emails between tours, and even on tours, are pretty much Pete’s baseline functionality. He hasn’t reached out to Patrick at all since they decided to go on hiatus.

Pete shrugs. He’s still vulnerable and maybe that’s why he says, “You seemed like you needed a break from me.”

“I did. I do,” Patrick sighs. “I needed a break from everything. That’s kind of the point you know? But I’m still on the other end. Fuck, Pete, I’m your best friend. I’m always going to be on the other side of the phone when you call me.”

Pete thinks on that as Patrick strokes his hair. It reminds him of his Dom and falling asleep on Patrick’s lap in the back of the van and Chicago and an alternate universe where he’s in one piece. “I was trying to help with that. Fucked up, though. I do that.”

“It doesn’t matter now.” Patrick sounds unbelievably sad when he says that, hurt. “We’re good. You’re fine, Pete. You didn’t fuck up.” He says it in a way that promises a fight, and a big one, if Pete pushes. 

He doesn’t have the energy for more hurt right now. So he sighs and curls himself closer around Patrick, and watches shiny people make asses of themselves in a desperate bid for what they think they need. It’s not as funny as it used to be. Not now that he totally over relates. 

He clicks over to the Food Network instead. Patrick lets out a happy noise that makes Pete’s universe feel like it’s back on its axis. It reminds him of eight years ago, when all he’d wanted was this: a much younger Patrick to curl up in bed with him. He’s gotten over that. 

He has. He found new things to chase – Jeanae and Mikey and Ashlee and everyone who ever got away from him including his new phantom. It’s just, when he gets tired, like he is now, when he’s been left again, he ends up coming back to Patrick. He’s wanted to keep Patrick since day one. So yeah, Patrick’s not Pete’s the way he wanted but at least he’s still here. It’s not what he wants it to be, but it’s enough to meet his needs. As long as he’s got that, he can make due until next time. 

“I can hear you thinking,” Patrick says, half way through an episode of Unwrapped. “It’s drowning out how jerky gets made. This is vital information.”

“Ten bucks says I can work beef jerky into a song.”

“No. I’m not taking that because then you’ll do it, and we’ll have Your Love is Tough and Chewy Like Jerky on our next album, and I don’t want to write the music for that.” 

“That is an awesome title. Snack food metaphors for different kinds of love could totally work.” He pinches Patrick’s side. “You’re a Twinkie, gold and springy and delicious, and you’ll last forever.”

“I hate your brain,” Patrick moans, laughing a little. “Email me the lyrics when you write them. I’m working on that solo thing but you know. Send them.”

“What happened to the hiatus?”

“We’re still on it. But if you let things stew in your brain you know it’ll just boil over. Then who has to clean liquefied gray matter off the floor?”

“You.”

“That’s right. Me. So just email them to me, because I’d rather read them than have to find where you keep your mop.”

“I don’t think I own one.” 

“Then it’ll save me money buying one, too.”

“I’m pretty sure my cleaning lady will just lend you hers.”

“Awesome,” Patrick chuckles. “You’re an outside the box thinker. I really want jerky now, though.”

“This is LA. I’m pretty sure we can get it delivered. I’m pretty sure you can get anything delivered here. I haven’t tried to get anything too extreme delivered yet though, panda milk, for instance.”

Patrick laughs, loud and sharp. He actually covers his mouth to try and push back the giggles. “Oh my god, what would you even do with panda milk?”

Pete clicks his remote. There’s a Mexican cooking show on next. “Make flan?”

Patrick laughs again. When he stops, he says very seriously, “We should order Mexican.”

“I thought you wanted jerky.”

“Tacos, jerky.” Patrick waves a hand. “It’s all sort of beef, kinda.”

“After this,” Pete says, slinging an arm over Patrick’s chest. “We haven’t gotten to the end of the jerky odyssey yet.” Patrick grunts in agreement and they let Mark Summers’ narration on food processing wash over them.


	3. Chapter 3

Patrick stays for two days. It’s like when Patrick was back in high school, before the band really got rolling, when they would just spend time together because they could. They dig out Pete’s He-Man DVD boxset and they order Mexican (and Chinese and Thai). By the time Patrick leaves, Pete feels like a real person again.

Of course, he’s been gone all of twelve minutes when Pete checks his email. There’s a backlog that seems to accumulate whenever he goes more than six hours without checking, mostly work, with a half a dozen from Mikey and Gabe. But there’s one from the morning after the LAPE party from ssc84, thank fuck. 

There’s no subject and the text inside simply says _are you alright?_ Pete exhales and stares at the black text. He’s not sure how to answer that, but the question makes him feel loose. He hasn’t been abandoned. If he’d been able to crawl out of himself, he would have found this before. 

Pete hits reply. For all of a minute, he contemplates saying yes, he’s fine. It’d be easy, to say yes and ask for more. It’s not like the guy can tell through the text whether or not he’s lying. Pete would know though, and he can’t help but remember the promise of retribution lying earned him that first time. 

What comes out is a stream of consciousness rant he’s sure that is as messy and complicated the most scrambled rambling he’s forced Patrick to wade through and untangle. It’s the sucking low in metaphor form that fills the entire message screen. He hits send before he can really think too much about it. 

Pete likes to call it practice in trusting himself. Copying and pasting the contents to Patrick isn’t so much self-trust, as self-preservation. He might be able to get something of value out of it even if Pete can’t and for once, he doesn’t feel he can post this up on his blog. 

Turns out he has lines in the sand after all. Who fucking knew?

Patrick gets back to him first. It’s the standard ‘you should tell someone who can actually make things better, Pete’ phone call that makes him feel better on principle alone. He likes that Patrick cares enough to lecture him. And maybe the lecture itself helps him get grounded. He’s pretty sure that’s his masochism talking. 

The buzz he gets waiting for a response from ssc84 to appear in his inbox is anything but masochistic. It’s more like having a crush, a ridiculously severe, life altering crush – do you like me, text yes or no. He can’t remember the last time he felt this desperate for someone’s attention. Ashlee springs to mind as the most recent fixation, but even his obsessive love for her didn’t have the same kind of constant, low-level burn that he’s got going for his Dom. 

It’s always there, like a song stuck in his head. Even when he was with Patrick, wrapped up in the familiar friendly love that came with him, it had been there, that ache for more. More comes in the form of another brief email less than 24 hours after his ramble was sent. He’s on the phone with Gabe when it arrives in his inbox and he’s so fucking relieved he reads it out loud. 

“You sound like you need me. There's another event at P.A. this Thursday. Blindfold, no shirt, the St. Andrews cross. Wait for me and I’ll take care of you.” Pete reads, then tips his head back against the arm of his couch and sighs at the ceiling. His laptop is hot on his legs but he doesn’t care because hello, his Dom’s out there in the city somewhere, planning to see Pete again. “Seriously, how the fuck does he do that? It’s like three sentences and yet manages to be hotter than a fucking Penthouse letter.”

“That’s debatable. I’d say it’s because you’re an emo bitch that needs to be taken care of like a child waiting for a freaking spanking,” Gabe answers. “Which I guess makes you a catch for someone who gets off on beating the shit out of you.” 

Pete laughs but he feels his neck get hot at the idea of a spanking. He bets it’d feel amazing, hands instead of a flogger. He drags his brain away from that image so he doesn’t end up jerking off on the phone with freaking Gabe of all people. 

He clears his throat and goes on the offensive instead. It’s more fun and Gabe’s probably waiting for it. “Don’t be bitter just because you bit off more dominatrix than you could chew.”

“Hey, a dominatrix is a pro and Sandy wasn’t that bad,” Gabe mumbles. “She gives insane head.”

“Gives?” That makes Pete come up short because wait, what? “As in, you’re still fucking her?”

There’s a long pause on the other end of the line, punctuated by Gabe coughing once. “Maybe.”

“Dude, fuck you. I thought we were to never speak of her and whatever it is that she did-“

“We’re not. Ever. It’s my personal private business.”

“And now you’re dating her?”

“Fucking her. Sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“Sometimes. What are you, the fucking Gestapo? You let a stranger take a layer of skin off your back, Wentz, and you’re going to do it again on Thursday so don’t even.” 

Pete scrolls up and rereads the email again. “I might not go.”

Gabe makes a wet, gross noise on the other end of the line. “Right. And giant flying lemurs are going to explode out of my ass."

That image gives Pete fairly significant pause. “That’s awful but I’d kind of kill to see it.”

“Nope. You’re going to go so the flying lemurs are going to chill in my lower intestine for the time being.”

“That’s not a good image either.”

“You had to take it literally; I’m just following your lead, sensei.”

“I’m going to have to lead you to a stop.”

“Stopping. So you need me to take you on Thursday?”

Pete grins because this is why Gabe is the best. Well, one of the best. Tied for first with Patrick and Mikey, overall, but ahead in the “let’s do it” category. He’s a headfirst diver, just like Pete, and he just gets it, in a different way than anyone else Pete’s ever met. But he doesn’t think he can have Gabe there for this. “I think I’m gonna call for a car.”

“You sure? I could do recon. ‘Cause for the last few weeks you’ve been all ‘Oh, Jenny who could my mystery date be?’ and shit. All I’d need to do would be grab a picture and bam, problem solved.”

“Are you Jenny in this scenario?” Pete asks, because he can’t deal with that. He needs a little time to figure out why that never occurred to him, why the idea makes him a little sick. 

“Me and Mikey collectively are Jenny. The point isn’t the fact that we make an awesome chick, it’s that you’re being a fifteen year old girl about this.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Fifteen year old girls made us both rich, man.”

“Yeah but since you’re a thirty year old man, it’s kind of a backslide. So just let me go, I’ll do some info gathering, you get to live in chains happily ever after and we’ll call it a day.” 

It’d be so easy and Pete’s tempted. He could stop wondering, waiting. “No.”

“What do you mean no? It’s what you want.”

Pete sighs and closes his laptop, setting it carefully on the floor. He sinks into the embrace of his sofa cushions and rubs his face. “Not like this.”

“I could at least tell you if he’s hot.”

“If he’s as good looking as a brick wall, he’s good enough for me. You just want to pretend to be Bond.”

“Brock Samson, but whatever. Pete, do you really want to keep fucking someone whose face you can’t even see?”

It shouldn’t be a hard question, but the answer just isn’t. “Yeah of course not but it’s gotta be on his terms.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Pete Wentz?”

Pete chuckles. “I don’t know. Maybe this is me turning into a real boy.”

That’s a little too touchy for either of them, so Gabe drags the conversation to the upcoming awards show season and whether or not it would be possible to get Lady Gaga to cover him in sequins. Pete doesn’t know her that well so he can’t say but he wants to see it. He thinks the world needs to see it.

They spend the rest of the week trying to get a hold of Gaga through their various publicists, agents and managers. She’s elusive, but the chase is half the fun. When Gabe calls in Mikey, it turns into a game of PR tag that makes Perez Hilton not care about the fact that he doesn’t really like any of them. It’s frivolous and ridiculous and makes Pete wonder what the hell his twenty year old self would have to say if he saw him now – something about selling out probably, followed by a punch in the face. But it keeps him entertained and gives him and Gabe an excuse to go out and stalk chicks with blond hair and big sunglasses. 

He manages to talk a pair of blocky plastic black shades off a girl named Virginia in exchange for an autograph in a club on Wednesday night. He wears them with his hoodie and jeans on Thursday as he climbs into the hired car, and it makes him feel less underdressed. Everyone else is going to be in latex and leather but he doesn’t see the point in bothering this time, if he’s going to be shrugging out of his shirt within ten minutes of being inside the building. He pulls it off as soon as he finds the cross, in that red room again, same as the prayer bench and the table and Pete gets a sense memory just walking in the door. 

He drops the jacket and glasses on the floor by the mirror and takes a deep breath. It’s different, maybe because the last time was less than a week ago, but he feels secure like he didn’t the first two times. The rush is still there, under his skin and singing through his veins, but it’s not screaming at him. It isn’t loud or angry or banging against his brain. 

He doesn’t ask for help this time, just leans on his back against the St. Andrews cross – which Pete thinks should be called an X-frame or something. Who wants to think about dead saints when they’re doing sexy things? For that matter, he doesn’t want to be reminded of any Andrews either because there’s Andy and the mere thought of what he’d have to say about the politics of power play… Talk about a turn off. So yeah, Pete thinks it’s a fairly bad name for a pretty cool piece of furniture. 

He takes a minute to get adjusted to being almost diagonal and then wraps the restraint hanging on the left around his wrist with his right hand. He fishes the blackout mask out of his pocket and tugs it over his eyes with his free hand before resting it against the right, still open cuff. 

Then he lie waits. He’s getting surprisingly good at it. It’s weird, because he never used to be. He has a bad case of inertia, in motion and always trying to stay in motion. But for this, even the being still feels like forward movement.

He sort of drifts until fingers brush his wrist. Then that voice, the voice that hits him in all the right places says, “Fuck, you are such a good boy.” 

He maybe preens at that the compliment. And there’s no maybe about how he gets hard at that voice and those confident hands. Pete closes his eyes beneath the mask and tries to recognize calluses and hard places on his fingertips as he buckles the right cuff around Pete’s wrist. When he’s done, Pete’s whole body sags in relief.

“You need so much,” his Dom murmurs, almost unintelligible. This party is smaller than the LAPE one, but the music is constant and there’s an edge to his voice that’s rough and gravelly, like Christian Bale’s Batman, so he has to strain to understand. 

When he does, it flips the mostly quiet corner of his brain reserved for animalistic desperation on and his words poor out like floodgates opened. It’s nothing specific, just a lot of “please, sir” and “give me anything” mixed in with whatever’s drifting through his mind in a loop that stops sounding like words after awhile. 

Pete keeps going until his Dom shoves three fingers into his mouth. He chokes a little, but his Dom murmurs, “Suck. Now.” He strokes his thumb over the corner of Pete’s stretched lips, and his throat and lips go on autopilot. “You just suck that while I talk. Suck and breathe and listen.”

Pete nods as best he can and does as he’s told. He’s never been the biggest cocksucker in the world, but the repetitive nature of the action is soothing. The clean-skin taste of his fingers is kind of nice, too. Mostly though, it’s just so much easier to listen when he doesn’t have to worry about talking. It takes the responsibility of filling the air out of his realm of possibility. 

“This can’t fix you,” he says, his body pressed so tight against Pete’s that every word makes his lips brush Pete’s skin. “I read the email but it’s too big. You want it, me, to, but it can’t. I can’t.”

Yes it can, Pete thinks, whining around the gag. It can. It makes his brain quiet. It fixes it. It can put him back together after the pain drives all his broken parts away. 

“No. It can’t. It can help, maybe, but it’s not going to do it on its own and you need to realize that.” He presses a kiss to Pete’s cheek that makes his body tighten and his heart ache. It’s almost too intimate, too familiar somehow. He can’t quite put his finger on it. There’s too much everything and his Dom is still talking. “You need real help. Medical, psychiatric help. I can’t play with you anymore if you can’t take care of yourself.” 

He pulls his fingers out of Pete’s mouth and drags the wet digits down his chest in a vague pattern that could be letters. It makes Pete shiver as the saliva hits his skin and starts to dry. He flicks Pete’s right nipple, then twists it sharply making Pete gasp and cry out. “No one wants to play with a broken toy, Pete,” he soothes when he finally and too-soon lets go. 

“No, sir,” Pete gasps, straining up for more. 

“You say that, but I don’t think you understand.” He’s gone all of a sudden. Pete wants to cry, because all that heat is gone and he’s cold. Then the warmth is back, if further away. “I want you to think about it, all right?” 

He punctuates this by attaching something, small and metal, and fuck, too tight, to his right nipple. He repeats the process on the left, at which point Pete’s brain helpfully supplies _nipple clamps_ to the sensation. Pete groans and lets his head fall back, because it’s so different from the wand or the flogger or even a swift slap. This is sharp and throbbing and consistent. 

“Something to help you focus, while you really think about what I said.” He tugs gently on one nipple, making Pete bite his lip against a scream. “Focus on this for me. You can.”

“Yes sir,” Pete forces out through clenched teeth. It sounds almost like an insult, but it earns his jaw a gentle stroke.

“Safe word?”

“Hemmingway.”

“Good boy. I’ll leave you to think,” he murmurs and then he moves the fuck away. Pete lets out an aborted shout of frustration and lets his head drop forward before regretting it. Every movement just makes it hurt more, but not enough to turn off his brain. 

The dark and the mostly quiet is the closest thing Pete can imagine to hell. It hurts, it hurts a lot, but it’s in that niggling not-quite-enough-just-one-more-please kind of way that doesn’t so much shut his brain off as sharpen it to the point of pain. It reminds him way too much of his overdose. That was part of how he ended up in that parking lot, just giving into the impulse to take one more pill, just one more will fix it.

That can’t be normal or sane, which isn’t news to him. It’s just that he can’t remember the last time he was left alone with the reality of it. Ever since the Best Buy thing he’s had Patrick to call or his mom or any of a thousand people in his contacts that could talk him off the ledge. Bound like this he’s in no danger of jumping, but he can’t back away either. He just has to look down into his dark and ugly places and try not to hurl from the rush of fucking psychological vertigo.

It’s ugly inside his head and maybe Patrick is right about the whole S&M thing not making it prettier. Maybe it’s just shutting it up for awhile and that makes him feel hopeless. Pete hates that, that trapped, cornered sensation he gets when he’s locked in his own brain. He wants to write and kick and scream. Mostly, he wants to run the fuck away and not stop until he turns into someone else.

Pete doesn’t like to think about how maybe he doesn’t want to get better. Gerard has this thing about anti-depressants, how they make you someone else, and Pete thinks maybe he’s right. Nothing Pete’s ever taken seems to have worked and some of it’s made him feel like he’s outside himself, watching himself live through cotton. That’s not better, it’s just a different kind of bad and he’d rather feel his pain, thanks.

Except he’s got this new way to feel pain now. It doesn’t have to be a spinning, spiraling out of control vortex that drags him down anymore. It’s the first time in his life his insides have ever gotten under control and didn’t require getting up on stage and throwing himself around so maybe.

Maybe, something. Maybe he should let Mikey refer him to that shrink who helped him back in the day. She kept Mikey from killing himself when no one else was able to get through to him, so she clearly knows her shit. Mikey’d give it to him no problem, no questions asked. He’ll probably be glad Pete asked. 

That feels like a failure though, bone deep and ridiculous. He knows that it wasn’t when Mikey got help or Joe did. It was just them recognizing their limits and doing something about it. Pete’s never been great at limits. He doesn’t know how to set them for himself.

He doesn’t have to this time. Isn’t that the fucking point? This is a limit someone else is giving him, and he can take it or leave it, and he realizes that he was probably always going to take it. He doesn’t want to be a broken toy. He might like the attention of being hated, but the actual feeling of it is only satisfying to the part of his brain that truly hates him. He doesn’t think that’s enough when he could have something that fills his entire body and seems to push through to something more, his spirit maybe.

“Sir?” It comes out hoarse, because this mess has him on the verge of tears again. It’s ridiculous how easily he breaks for this man, how little resistance he puts up. It’s hard to mind when cool fingers stroke down his throat and down to trace his thorns, silently saying _I’m here_. 

That’s enough for Pete to focus on. It’s a soothing counterpoint to the clamps, which are starting to make him numb more than anything else. It makes him feel something outside himself which is what he needs. He always seems to see what Pete needs. “I don’t want to be broken.”

“You’re not broken. You’re just cracked.”

Like old concrete or a smashed mirror. He doesn’t say that. He just arches up into the touch as well as he can. “I’ll try.”

“I know you will.” Lips press warm and soft to his collar bone, following the path fingers just took. His Dom’s soft hair brushes Pete’s neck and under his jaw and he clings to the fact that it’s short and fine. It’s more than he knew before. “This is the last time we’re going to play for awhile.”

Panic floods Pete. He doesn’t know what he said or did wrong, but he’ll fix it. He’ll make it better damn it. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what I did but if you just let me, I can fix it I swear, okay? Please, sir, I’m doing what you want.”

“It’s not a punishment. You need to get help, take some time to let it settle before we play again.” More kisses, trailing over his collarbone towards his shoulder. “Consider it an incentive to get healthy.”

“We didn’t play this time,” Pete whines, leaving the sir off on purpose – hoping. 

It pays off in the form of a sharp slap across his face. He hisses in relief and his Dom sighs. “Sir. And don’t bait me.”

““Sir, I just need,” Pete mumbles. “It’s not enough.”

There’s another sigh. It reminds him of Patrick and his parents and everyone who has ever cared about him. It’s the ‘nothing is ever enough for you’ sigh and Pete doesn’t want to hear it from him. 

“I know. I know it’s fucked up. I’m fucked up. Sir, I just, you make it stop and you make it good and I just need it, okay? So please. Please, please I’m fucking begging here. I’ll call a shrink tomorrow but tonight just do it, sir, please.”

There’s another irritated sigh and the fingers trail down, dropping to trace the tattoo on his stomach. It feels good but it’s too gentle, too soft. He needs it hard and he needs it to sting.

“Hurt me. I want you to, sir. I don’t know what the fuck you need me to say here; just give it to me okay? Please.” He twists his wrists and grabs at the wooden frame as he pleads, just to do something with his hands. 

“You are so pretty when you beg,” he says on a soft exhale and then releases one of the clamps. 

The rush of blood flow back into abused flesh makes Pete’s eyes water and his breath catch. It’s more of the same when he removes the other one, pain then adrenaline, then a weird throbbing pleasure. He needs to buy some of these. They’re fucking amazing. He laughs, a little bit giggly from the sudden change in sensation and the small rush of endorphins. 

“I didn’t bring anything else,” the Dom says as he massages Pete’s chest. If this were anywhere else, any other time, that would be enough. It’d lead to more kissing and possibly a fuck but it’s not what Pete really wants. “I guess you might’ve earned a spanking,” he muses, sounding as if he’s examining Pete like he’s a jigsaw puzzle and he’s trying to find all the edge pieces so he has a place to start.

Pete takes a deep breath because as hot as that sounds, if this is the last he’s getting for awhile, an open palm isn’t going to be enough. “Sir, you can use my belt, if you want,” he says in a rush. It feels kind of like jumping out of a moving car, which he’s only done that one time. Okay, twice. 

The falling and crashing feeling’s about the same. There’s a long pause where Pete thinks maybe he’s walked away that’s almost as bad as colliding with asphalt. Then Pete hears him take a long deep breath and feels him reach for the restraints on his wrists. The moment they’re off, he’s tugged forward by the front of his jeans. “Stand up.” 

He obeys gladly and waits. He’s rewarded with hands at his fly, undoing his belt buckle and pulling the belt free. It’s one of the few leather belts he owns, a thick flat one maybe two inches wide that his mom gave him to wear to a soccer awards banquet when he was like seventeen. He’d grabbed it out of the back of his closet on impulse and all he can think about is how it’s going to feel snapping against his skin as it slides free of the belt loops. 

Pete isn’t expecting the hands to return to his fly once the belt’s gone. He shudders as the hands undo the button and pull down the zipper before hooking thumbs over the waist of his jeans and pulling them down. He didn’t wear underwear underneath and stands naked and blind, waiting with his jeans around his ankles.

The hands grab his shoulders. “Step out,” he orders pulling Pete forward and then turning him around again. It disorients Pete, taking away his sense of location in the room. “Walk forward. Good. Here.” One hand releases a shoulder to take his right hand and place it against the cross, grounding him again before repeating it with the other hand. “Step closer and lean forward,” he guides. 

Pete goes easily, his body sagging against the unforgiving wooden frame. There’s a rush of relief and gratitude when his wrists are rebuckled into the leather restraints. It’s not in his hands anymore. He doesn’t have to do anything but take what’s given from here on. 

The slow start always surprises Pete. The soft caresses over his skin are completely different from what’s coming. The contrast makes him tighten every muscle in his body harder than any warning.

The first blow lands on his ass and is softer than he’s expecting. It’s almost tame compared to what he’s always imagined being whipped would have to feel like – not that he’s spent that much time dwelling on the idea. It feels more like the open palmed smacks than the burn he was hoping for. 

He sighs and hangs his head forward, trying not to be let down and just enjoy what he’s given. But he’s always been a fairly ungrateful little fuck.

He’s so lulled by the disappointment that the first whip-like blow is a complete shock. It’s like the flogger only more, worse in the best fucking way. It’s so intense that for the first time since he started playing this game, Pete’s actually tempted to use his safe word. 

He doesn’t say it though. Stubbornness and curiosity and good old fashioned need win out. He takes a deep breath, clenches his teeth so he doesn’t do something stupid like bite his tongue off on the next impact and grabs the edge of the wood to brace himself as best he can. 

Bracing isn’t enough because the next blow stings like fire and robs the breath from his lungs as it slices from his right shoulder down towards his left side, feeling almost cutting where it first lands. It whites out his brain for a split second and the next blow drowns out sound. By the third his world is tiny, reduced to the delicious, awful, blistering pain that lights him up from the inside. 

He recognizes other things distantly. The echo of his own voice crying out, the twitching of his muscles, the tears seeping into the blindfold and pressing wet against his face are all there. It’s just that they’re all like stars in another galaxy compared to the burn of the noon sun. 

His back’s burning. He wants it to burn through him until there’s nothing left. He wants to be bloody ribbons of skin and ash. He wants to be laid open so all the poison can ooze out. He wants more and more and more until he doesn’t want anything at all. He’s just an available surface for the belt to land on. 

That’s empty. It’s safe. He’s nothing but a thing to serve a purpose. It’s a headspace that is white and quiet and hollow like Pete’s never been in his whole life. It’s fucking pure. 

He doesn’t realize his lips have curved into a dopey, drugged-looking smile until the ripples of pain fade enough to pull him out of the blankness. But his face hurts from it, in a weird contrast to the throbbing of his back and ass, and the tackiness of his eyes under the blindfold. A mangled giggle slips out at the thought of how he must look and his Dom is pressed tight against his stinging, aching back a moment later. 

“You’re such a fucking painslut,” he murmurs as he keeps touching Pete, his front to Pete’s back, his hands sliding up and down Pete’s sides. “It’s gorgeous.”

The guy, whoever he might actually be, must be standing on the ground instead of on the elevated bottom of the cross because it seems like he’s a little shorter than Pete. The difference puts him at the perfect height to kiss the back of Pete’s neck and down across his shoulders. For what feels like hours, that’s all he does, smatter kisses across uninjured skin as he leans against him. He’s an anchor, warm and heavy in a soft fabric that’s some kind of cotton. 

The sensation is a low simmer rather than an inferno and it makes Pete drowsy. He’s been pretty fucking tired in his time, after five days with maybe two hours of sleep on tour in the van, for example. Even so, he’s never come as close to falling asleep standing up as he does here. He doesn’t _get_ that kind of sleepiness without a shit ton of effort, near perfect conditions, and sometimes pharmaceutical assistance. It’s just that he lost all his energy taking the belting.

He doesn’t know how long he lasts before his legs give out. He just knows that they do and he sags. The wrist restraints and the body pressing him into the cross are the only things holding him upright. 

His Dom responds by unbuckling the restraints and easing him down to kneel on the carpet. He murmurs, “You’re done,” and leaves Pete for a moment then returns with his jeans and begins to try and work Pete into them with a kind of gentle efficiency. Pete couldn’t help if he wanted to. Someone stole his limbs and replaced them with bags of sand, which doesn’t seem to bother either of them very much. By the time his Dom’s finished dressing him, Pete’s lying on his side on the floor, his head pillowed on a solid thigh.

He could live here, on this probably disgusting floor, breathing in the smell of his Dom’s sweat and detergent. He lifts a heavy hand to clutch at the first thing he hits, which just so happens to be a fabric covered knee. Pete fists his hand in the cloth behind him and turns his head towards his Dom’s stomach. If he thought he could get away with it, Pete would nuzzle towards his waist but he contents himself with rubbing his cheek back and forth across his thigh.

His Dom responds by massaging his scalp and knits his fingers with Pete’s other hand. It fits like they’re made to thread together and Pete falls maybe a little in love with him in the relative quiet. More than he maybe was already.

He doesn’t want to go. He’s cool to stay in the dark like this forever. Really. He is. That’s totally an option. “I don’t want to go.”

“You don’t have to yet.” The reply comes with a squeeze of strong fingers. Pete squeezes back, as hard as he can which after everything is pathetically weak.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know. Get yourself some help and we’ll pick up. It’ll take as long as you make it.”

Pete doesn’t argue. He needs this, the being held and cared for stuff that comes after, almost as much as he needs the pain. He’s not going to fuck up this time by letting his mouth get away from him. So Pete lies there, letting himself sink into the smell and feel of this stranger he feels like he knows better than he knows most people and clings. He wants every fucking second his Dom will give him.

“Do you have someone who can take care of you when you leave here?” he asks Pete, a half a breath away, heat fanning over Pete’s lips and nose. “You’re not going to be okay on your own.”

Pete’s still high, still drifting and pliant. He smiles a little and nods. “I have a Patrick,” he says, his words a little slurred. It doesn’t really make any sense. This man can’t possibly know what he’s talking about. But his Dom makes a nonverbal noise of approval that he won’t be alone, won’t be left to crash like the last time, and goes back to combing his fingers through Pete’s short hair.

It feels like hours. It probably is because the extra noises, like talking and people moving around eventually get quieter. When he releases Pete’s hand, all that’s left is the baseline of the music shaking the walls. 

Pete forces his hands to cooperate, grabbing at his shirt when he tries to carefully move away. He tugs down and squeezes his eyes shut tight behind the mask, working as best he can on instinct. “Kiss me first.”

“You don’t tell me what to do,” he warns. He doesn’t hit Pete again, even though Pete knows he deserves it for forgetting the honorific. He doesn’t care. He just fucking wants.

“You’re going to walk away,” Pete breathes, not letting go. “You’re going to fucking walk away. Again. So just, fucking kiss me first, sir. Please.”

“I shouldn’t, you mouthy fuck.” His voice sounds like it got hit by a sandblaster but his lips are soft. The kiss is anything but, demanding and a little angry and it makes Pete wonder what he fucks like, if he’d take him just like he takes everything else. He reaches up with his other hand towards his Dom’s face but his hand is caught before he can hit skin. 

“You’re amazing,” he murmurs against Pete’s lips, wet and hot. “Take care of yourself so we can do this again.”

Pete sighs and nods. They’re done, it’s obvious. There’s nothing dismissive to it, just an air of finality that makes Pete push himself upright and try and collect himself. He sighs and rubs at his wrists blindly. “What’s my count?”

“A hundred. Slow. You’re such a good boy,” he sighs. “You really are, you know that? Don’t let anyone tell you different.” He dips in and kisses Pete again, slow and sweet on the mouth before pulling away. 

Pete tucks his legs up to his chest, wincing as he does so, and counts off with his chin on his knees. When he hits one hundred he pushes the blindfold off and up onto his forehead. It takes a little while for his eyes to adjust to the sudden light, but when he can see again, he’s staring into Gabe’s face. 

“Hey.” Gabe holds up the black hoodie and the pair of blocky sunglasses with his right hand. “I got your stuff.”

Pete blinks a few times, just to make sure he’s not hallucinating but Gabe is still there no matter how many times he shakes himself. “What are you doing here?” 

Gabe points behind him at the woman standing against the mirror. She’s short and a little rounder than Gabe’s usual type, with light brown hair piled on top of her head in a leather bustier that made her very full figure look absolutely amazing. It takes Pete a second to recognize her but after a second it clicks. She’s the same woman who dragged Gabe off at that first party.

“Sandy wanted to come play,” Gabe says, still holding out the jacket. “I wasn’t following you man, I swear.”

Pete sits in contemplation of that for a long moment but the abrupt quiet of the DJ’s music cutting off and brightening of the light snaps him out of it. It’s after last call. He should get up. He just can’t yet. “How much did you see?” Pete asks, surprised at how hoarse his voice actually sounds now that he can hear it clearly. 

Gabe’s making a face that Pete doesn’t like. His entire body looks like he’s holding it funny and his lips are drawn into an awkward expression. Gabe glances over his shoulder at Sandy for a second. Pete watches her meet Gabe’s gaze, then give a small shake of her head. He doesn’t know what she’s shaking her head at, but if Gabe lies to him, he will fucking kill him – exhaustion be damned.

“Gabe, the fuck did you see?”

“We got here after, he, the guy,” Gabe stumbles a little over his words there and rubs the back of his neck with his free hand before charging ahead. “He was already laying into you with the belt. You guys kinda drew a crowd, with you – dude, you were like, really crying.”

“Fuck you, Gabe,” Pete mutters, not lifting his chin from his knees. 

“It was beautiful,” Sandy says. She’s got the thickest Jersey accent Pete’s heard in ages, which perhaps explains a little better why Gabe’s fixated on her like he never seems to be with LA girls, but she’s also got a kind face that hides absolutely nothing. “You should be really proud of yourself, taking that the way you did. Especially if you’ve only been playing for a short time.” 

Pete’s gaze flicks from her to Gabe, away and then back, and he laughs. The movement makes his back scream in protest. “Dude, only sometimes?”

Gabe’s grin is still tinged with that awkward air that’s so alien it goes all the way up to his eyes. “More than sometimes. More like… a lot.” 

Gabe turns again and waves his hand at her and she comes over to kneel in front of Pete, an impressive feet in that top and what appear to be leather pants. There’s a second where Pete can’t look at anything but the spectacular display of her breasts in the corset but then she smiles at Pete, her round face lit up, and he wants to cling to her. She understands. He can tell from the look in her eyes and he wants to crawl into her lap and tell her everything. 

“Hi, Pete. I’m Sandy. We sort of met back in November.”

He nods without lifting his chin. “Hey.”

“We’re gonna help you up okay?” She keeps her voice low and even like she’s talking to a child. 

Pete wishes he’d found her instead of Gabe. He could’ve bent to her. She would’ve been safe and easy, not like this that turns him inside out. “Okay.”

“We need to touch you to get you up. Are you going to be okay with that?” she asks.

He honestly has no fucking idea. But he nods again and Gabe drapes the hoodie over his shoulders, puts Pete’s sunglasses onto his forehead and slides under Pete’s right arm. Sandy gets his left and together they haul him to his feet. 

She rests her hand on his stomach to steady him, no doubt because his back is a mess. “You’re all right. Gabe, tell him he’s all right.”

“I don’t know. I’m kinda thinking you need a doctor.”

“He’s fine,” Sandy says, her voice tight and warning. Pete can’t help grinning because her tone reminds him of all the Jersey broads he’s met over the years. Arguing with that is pointless and it makes Pete giggle. 

It’s verging on hysterical and Gabe helping him into his hoodie drives it over the edge. His back is so raw that even the barest brush of fabric is fucking torture and his already overloaded brain can’t really deal with it. He laughs like a lunatic until tears slide down his face because it hurts. It really fucking hurts. 

Gabe’s eyes are wide and nervous, like they were after that fight but Sandy sighs. “He just needs some Advil, Neosporin, water, a shower and like, two days of rest. Pete, hey.” She snaps her fingers in front of his face. It jerks him out of it – mostly. “You’re probably still in subspace a little, Pete. This is normal. I’m sorry he walked away from you but we’ve got you now so listen, okay?”

“He’ll be back,” Pete says, knowing he sounds pathetic and way too far gone to care. “He will.”

“Yeah, I know,” Gabe sighs.

“Let’s get you home,” Sandy says gently leading them out of the room towards the door. 

He lets himself be led and when the cool December air hits his face, it goes miles to help him come back to himself, even if he does still feel insulated. “Was he hot at least?” Pete asks, dropping his head against Gabe’s arm. “Don’t tell me anything specific. I just… I’m just wondering.”

“He’s your type.” Gabe says a little flatly. “I- Yeah.” He swallows hard then slides away from Pete to the car, leaving Pete leaning heavily on Sandy. 

She’s tiny, five-two if she’s an inch and he feels a little bad putting his weight on her but he’ll fall down if he doesn’t. He leans on her and watches Gabe unlock the car and open both the front and back passenger side doors. 

“My type like he’s all twiggy and Mikey Way-shaped or my type like he’s a male Jeanae or my type he’s lanky and has red-hair like Ashlee used to? Seriously what the fuck’s that mean? I have lots of types, Gabe.”

“I don’t know,” Gabe snaps. “You didn’t want to know, so just drop it. I didn’t even mean to see what I did so stop asking me questions, all right? Just get in the car.”

There’s enough of Pete still strapped to that cross that he obeys, climbing into the backseat. He sags forward, pressing his forehead against the seat in front of him. He doesn’t sleep, but he drifts until Gabe’s car comes to a halt in front of his house. Gabe throws the car into park and they both drag him inside.

“You don’t have to stay,” Pete mumbles as they let him fall, face first, onto his bed and then show no sign of leaving.

“No way. You said you didn’t do so great alone last time.”

“I’ll call Patrick when I wake up,” Pete mumbles into his pillow. “I won’t wait this time. He’ll fix it.”

“No. No, it’s fine. We can stay. Right, San? We can totally stay. It’s nothing. We’ll stay.”

“I’m going to be stealing a pair of your pants and selling them on eBay,” Sandy chirps. “So I’m cool.” He really fucking likes her. Gabe should marry her or something. 

“So we’ll stay. The end,” Gabe declares. “I’m gonna walk Hemmy and you rest. And just- don’t call him okay? We’ve got this.”

Pete’s too burnt out to argue. This isn’t his favorite part, but sleeping without the aid of a sleeping pill? It’s amazing and he sinks into it like a kiss.

~*~*~  
Pete’s first meeting with Dr. Morgan won’t be until after New Years. He gets her number from Mikey after he kicks Gabe and Sandy out of his guest room, but even calling her right away doesn’t get him in the door all that quick. Plus, he spends Christmas in Chicago because well, Andrew and Hilary are both going. It would be kind of shitty to be the only child who can’t be assed to go home. Besides, his mom promised to cook.

The flight home sucks. The welts and bruises on his back aren’t healed and his duffle bag makes moving acutely painful. He can barely sit and he sleeps on his childhood bed sprawled face down, careful to wear a shirt and boxers at all times. 

Then there’s hugs. Hugs are hell made of slaps on the back and squeezes on the shoulder with no escape because his family is full of huggers. And even if he could avoid them, he wouldn’t. He’s missed them all too much.

His mother looks at him funny as he shifts awkwardly on the couch Christmas morning. He makes up a half-way decent lie about getting into yogalates or some such shit and being sore from all the new twisting and bending. She doesn’t buy it, but she doesn’t press either. 

“You look tired,” she says when she finally manages to corner him. It’s in the quiet of the day after Christmas and he’s in his room, the one he grew up in, sprawled out on his stomach writing in one of the mostly full notebooks still lying around everywhere. 

“I am, I guess. I’m working some shit out.”

He’s spent his entire life since about age twelve working shit out. She stopped pushing him to talk years ago. She knows that if he needs her, he’ll say something. She’s good at the waiting though, sitting there not talking until it just bursts out of him. It usually works too.

“I’m seeing someone when I get back to LA. A therapist. A new one. I’m fine I just…” He doesn’t know what to say. There’s no way to explain this, to talk to her about what’s going on, so the sentence just kind of dies in the air. 

“You’ll have to let me know how it goes,” his mom says. Her tone of voice doesn’t hold the weight it should considering that she’s the one that signed the paperwork when he went into the hospital after his overdose. 

He wishes he could bring this kind of thing up without feeling like a tool. He just can’t help but remember how bad he scared her, how much he hurt her. It makes him want to pull his pillow over his face until she goes away. He doesn’t do that though. 

Pete just nods and promises that he will, in fact, tell her how it goes. He wants to nominate his mom for sainthood when she just squeezes his ankle. It’s the best kind of silent comfort and it doesn’t even touch his welts. 

He goes straight to Dr. Morgan’s office from Van Nuys airport and the doctor turns out to be a woman in her fifties with graying auburn hair pulled back into a loose knot at the back of her neck and wearing a sensible tailored shirt the same color as the Pacific Ocean on a calm day and comfortable looking black slacks. She’s what a shrink should look like – put together and composed and kind of librarian looking with an edge. Pete has to remind himself that she’s not a stuffy caricature. She’s the one who put Mikey Way back together again and that alone proves that she knows her shit. 

Once she’s done getting his treatment history, a rundown of untreated breakdowns, and a general overview of his special brand of nuts, she puts down her pen and meets his gaze. Her eyes are a shade lighter than her shirt but bright. “What do you want to get out of this, Pete?”

Pete blinks at her. That’s not exactly the question he was expecting but it’s one he hasn’t really thought about. “I don’t know.”

“Then I don’t know how much I can help you,” Dr. Morgan says dispassionately, like that doesn’t ruffle her shit at all. Probably it doesn’t. “You’ve heard the light bulb joke right?”

“Which one?”

“The one that goes ‘how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb.’”

Pete smiles and nods. “Yeah. It’s just one but the light bulb has to want to change, right?”

“Right. But the thing that’s missing from that joke is the fact that the light bulb would also need at least a little of an idea of what it wants to change into, what it’s working towards.” She shrugs. “For example, it can be something as simple as wanting to stop forgetting your keys or as complicated as reorganizing your life from the ground up. But if you don’t have a goal, it’s hard to really get started. It shouldn’t be too hard for you.” 

She tilts her head and studies him. She looks at him and through him in a way that makes Pete want to fidget. He wonders if that x-ray stare is something they teach in therapist college or if it’s just an innate talent. 

“You took the initiative to book the appointment and you showed up. I think you have a fairly good idea.”

Pete stares at her for a moment, then gives in and flops onto her couch staring up at the ceiling. The marks on his back are faded to pale yellow bruises now, barely there unless he pokes at them – which he does compulsively. That’s kind of the point. He sighs and rubs his eyebrow with the heel of his hand. “It’s going to sound crazy.”

Dr. Morgan laughs. “I’m a psychiatrist. Crazy is my business.”

Pete takes a few deep breaths and closes his eyes. Okay. Calmly accepting and handling crazy is her job. So is confidentiality. He’s never had a shrink leak his history before. Everything out in the public eye about his mental health, he put out there. This is a safe place. It’s not like she’s going to call his dad and tell him, right? Right. “I…I’m in this relationship and if I don’t get help, he’s pretty much said that it’s over.”

“That doesn’t sound crazy,” Dr. Morgan says, gently. “It sounds like your partner cares about your well being.”

“It’s sadomasochistic,” Pete blurts, shifting easily into shockjock mode. He can do this. He used to like this, saying crazy shit to get a rise out of people. He doesn’t want Dr. Morgan to react badly to this because it means too much and fuck, he wants it to work. He really does. He needs to not want what he’s found. Not yet anyway. “He ties me up, beats me stupid, sometimes he gets me off, and if I don’t get help, he won’t do it anymore.”

“Well,” Dr. Morgan says, just the tiniest bit of surprise in her voice. “I can see how that would complicate things.”

“Also I don’t know who he is.”

“Your partner. You mean in a metaphoric sense? You feel alienated or like he's not the person you thought he was?”

“Like, I don’t know his name. Or what he looks like. He has me wear a blindfold whenever we’re together. I’ve got an email address and a voice and the way he makes me feel. Otherwise, I have no fucking idea.” 

Pete drops his hand to rub at his right eyelid. Yeah, it sounds pretty bad out loud. He knew it did, but so far the only people he’s talked to about it are Mikey, Gabe and Patrick. Somehow, they have a way of making everything he says seem sane. Now that it’s out there to someone who doesn’t know him and the kind of shit he gets up to, it sounds even worse. 

He charges on though, trying really hard not to give a damn about how she reacts. “He won’t tell me who he is and I want him enough that I don’t actually care. So, um, I guess, turning that into something healthy enough for him to do it again is the goal. ”

There’s a long silence. Then he hears her click her pen a few times, followed by the familiar sound of ballpoint scratching on paper. That sound goes on for longer than he’d like before she speaks again. “How does three times a week sound to you?”

Pete chuckles and opens his eyes. One of her reddish eyebrows has crept up towards her hairline but other than that, her face is impassive. He can so see why Mikey likes her. “I can do four if you’ve got the openings.”

The breath she exhales sounds almost relieved. “Four it is.”

“Is this an okay goal, doc?”

She doesn’t answer that question. She just taps her chin with her pen a couple of times and says “I think that therapy is probably a wise choice for you, Pete.” It’s totally evasive but whatever. He’s used to that from mental health professionals. 

“Yeah, that’s not double-speak-y at all.”

“Well that’s what they teach us in head shrinker school.” She glances at the clock on the wall and sighs. “And I think we’re out of time for today. Talk to my receptionist about booking and come back tomorrow ready to dig into your shit.”

“I didn’t know doctors are allowed to swear on the clock.”

“You swore first. It’s clearly what you think about your psychological and emotional inventory. I’m trying to couch it in terms you’re comfortable with.”

“Thanks.” He rolls off the couch and heads to the door 

“I also want you to open yourself to the possibility of medication.”

Pete prickles. His history with pharmaceuticals has been shaky at best. Both his trust in them and his track record using them are full of holes. “They haven’t worked before.”

“So you’ve said but your history indicates a chemical imbalance so it’s possible the medications you’ve tried weren’t the right ones for your specific brain chemistry. Maybe they weren’t the right dose. Maybe you really don’t need them. Contrary to what my colleagues seem to have led you to believe, psychopharmacology isn’t an exact science. There’s a bit of trial and error involved and that’s complicated by the fact that it’s your personality you’re trying and erring with but success is possibility. I don’t even know that it’s an option we’d take. Just open yourself to that possibility.” 

Pete sighs, leaning on the door knob. He nods because it’s easier than meeting her eyes again head on. “I’ll think about it.”

“Yes you will,” she says. Then she gives him a thin smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow Pete. Be ready to work.” He hasn’t left the room before she’s on her feet and crossing to the intercom phone on her desk.

The receptionist doesn’t seem surprised when he books four days for every week in January and into February with a week off for Bryant Park Fashion week and his Clandestine show. She just clicks away on her keyboard and prints out a list of dates. “Be fifteen minutes early. If you’re more than five minutes late your appointment will be cancelled and you will be charged,” she says as she hands the appointment sheet to him but that’s it. She doesn’t even blink at him. 

It’s only an hour a day but Pete works like he’s in a studio writing an album. Actually, no. When he’s done writing or recording for the day, Pete usually has something to show for the emotional exhaustion he feels. This? It’s like Sisyphus trying to get the fucking bolder up the hill. A lot of fucking work and zero payoff. 

Most days, Dr. Morgan manages to hit his buttons so hard that he wants to cry or put his hand through the wall or punch her in the face or all of the above. He does the first two in the first week. Pete leaves her office craving a nap and possibly a hug or twelve and tries to remember why he agreed to this. 

And she assigns homework. 

It’s not even the kind of homework he vaguely remembers from high school and college. They’re ridiculous things. She has him doing verbal affirmations in the mirror and making lists of at least ten things he considers his flaws and his qualities. 

She gives him that assignment on a Thursday, because she doesn’t work Fridays. His flaw list is two pages long and excruciatingly detailed. It takes him about two hours to get it together, though he comes back and adds things to it over the course of the weekend. His quality list takes him all fucking weekend to get nine. For the tenth quality he writes down “Patrick” folds it in half and shoves it in the pocket of the hoodie on his way out the door so he doesn’t have to look at it anymore. What he makes himself forget is that Dr. Morgan is going to make him talk about it. And while he was hoping she would spend the time telling how to fix the laundry list of faults, she picks apart his quality list. 

She turns him inside out and then shoves his guts back down where they _should_ be and Pete lets her. He thanks her and writes check after check that his insurance company would never cover. Pete actually ends up on the phone with his mom a few times, just listening to her breathing as she makes dinner for his dad or does laundry or finishes work projects because being alone with his own thoughts is too fucking much.

He gets about three hours into February before he loses it all over his blog, then Twitter, about how he can’t see himself ever playing with Fall Out Boy again. At least not now. It’d be kind of embarrassing if he gave even the tiniest shit. He just can’t imagine his life continuing like it has been, not and still live with himself. 

It bubbles up inside him and out of his fingers at dark ‘o clock. He doesn’t bother to try and stop it. Dr. Morgan’s told him that his writing’s a good healthy way of expressing himself but that over-sharing is part of the destructive behaviors that got him to her office to begin with. So he does it half just to spite her for making him try so goddamn hard. 

Of course it doesn’t go down the way he hoped. Andy calls him every fifteen minutes from the moment some little tween following his Twitter snitches him out via retweet. Not answering is an asshole move but Pete can’t talk him yet. He still has to go to his appointment with Dr. Morgan, and he gets two days before what he said goes from Twitter fodder to the first news feed that pops up when he Googles Fall Out Boy. 

Pete is braced for Dr. Morgan’s calm steps of exploration through his thoughts and feelings that led up to his outburst. He lets her dig because he needs it and it really does help. They walk through it and Pete feels even crazier but its good cause hey, at least he’s trying right? He thinks so. 

He’s mostly prepared for the way his friends, his family, and in particular Joe and Andy and Patrick express their varying levels of what-the-fuck-itude in the form of yelling and berating when he finally answers their calls. “We’re not in Fall Out Boy right now Pete,” Patrick growls, the quiet fury in his voice beyond yelling. “But I fucking expect it to be there for us come back to. Don’t be a fucking idiot or so help me god, I’ll break you in half.” Pete believes him and maybe, just maybe, he gets off on the fact that his guys care that much. That Patrick cares that much. 

Pete already has responses ready when his agent fields him about a hundred and fifty thousand requests for interviews. He’s cool and collected and fine. He’s got this shit covered. He’s just not expecting the email with the subject line _are you baiting me_?

He clicks that email with shaking fingers. It’s been more than six weeks since he had contact with his Dom and, sometimes, missing him is so acute that Pete actually hurts from the lack. He isn’t done therapy and isn’t even close to well so he wasn’t ready for this. Yet there it is, sitting in his inbox, all fucking innocuous like one of those cute little blue poison frogs from the Amazon. 

_i hope you didnt do this to get my attention, pete. if you did you wont enjoy the punishment. believe me. i dont want to have to make you sorry. tell me the truth._ Pete holds his breath as he reads it, but he lets it out as he reads the last sentence. 

It’s the only command in the entire email and it’s fucking terrifying. Honestly, he doesn’t know. Pete had been a little drunk and a lot of a mess so he’s not sure. It’s just his style. He’s pretty sure it wasn’t done consciously to get his Dom’s attention back, but maybe. He doesn’t know. He’ll have to ask Dr. Morgan tomorrow. So that’s all he types in response. _i dont know._

It’s probably not going to be enough for him, Pete realizes. Then again, Pete’s been reading the things people have been tweeting at him and commenting on his blog since his big meltdown. The number of heartbroken kids who fell almost as in love with his band as he did, who bled and healed through their music is staggering. He yanked the rug out from under his best friends. He hurt them all.

The thing is, it’s not like he didn’t know it would when he hit Tweet. He was just acting like too much a selfish child to really care. So maybe for his band and his fans – he wants to be punished. He wants to bleed and feel sorry in his skin and be made to pay. He reopens the email and hits reply again. He thinks before he types this time and goes for simple and direct. _please. im sorry. help me._

He doesn’t hesitate before he hits send. He doesn’t second guess forwarding the entire exchange to Dr. Morgan either. He writes her an explanation and asks to talk about it in session tomorrow and, after he hits send, realizes that maybe this is what getting well really looks like.


	4. Chapter 4

Dr. Morgan gives him the OK to meet with his Dom two weeks later when he gets back from New York. “I feel like you’ve got the tools to deal with whatever it is that you’re walking into. I’d rather you went while we were still meeting four times a week, than when it could be days between the encounter and our next session.” She smiles then, wry but sincere. “That is if you want to of course.”

She’s teasing him. He’s gotten to know her well enough to know that she’s smarter than that. Pete’s writing the email on his phone before he’s out of the fucking office. He checks it every ten seconds on the drive home and has two near-miss car wrecks because of it. He tries to distract himself with sorting through messages from all the contacts he made at the Clandestine Fashion Show the week before, but it doesn’t really work. 

Ashlee calls as he gets in from walking Hemmingway. That actually does distract him. He got to see her for all of five minutes at his show then they’d both gotten swept into their own things and never had a chance to talk before he left. It’s a fucking shame, because he misses her. And for the first time in ages he doesn’t feel guilty talking to her because, according to Dr. Morgan, being friends with your exes is actually a good sign. 

“You sound twitchy, Pete. What’s going on with you?” she asks and Pete can hear the frown in her voice. He loves her because she always means it when she asks. She genuinely wants to know.

Pete allows himself to “feel his feelings” for a second and wish that he’d been different, better, more able to be what Ashlee deserved. Then he lets it go and tells her, pretty much everything in more detail than he shared with anyone except his shrink. She knows him about as well as anyone and has the unique perspective - that Mikey, Gabe, and Patrick all lack - of having dated him for over a year. She listens without speaking until he’s done and then sighs. “You sound like you’re in love with him.”

“That’s- I’m not-“ Pete sputters. “I don’t actually know the guy. Dr. Morgan says I’m possibly projecting an ideal onto him because he’s kind of an abstract and-“

“Baby,” she says, firm but gentle, “How long did it take you to fall for Jeanae?”

Pete has to think about it. It’s been years but he remembers that it had been fairly fast. He does some math from the first time he met her to their first fuck behind a club when she was still way too young for him. He’d been lost by the first time he thrust into her. “Three days.”

Ashlee gives a small sound of assent before continuing on. “How about Mikey?”

Pete laughs. “Like three hours.” But then that was true of pretty much the entirety of My Chem. They were all just so fucking easy to adore. Mikey especially. Pete had fallen for Mikey hard and fast, head over heels that first day and that had been it for him. The gay above the waist thing had gone from truth to fiction. 

“And me?” There’s no bitterness in her question. She knows the answer already. He told her a hundred times when they were together. 

They met at a party and she’d been so gorgeous that he’d been literally breathless. He’d been seeing someone, someone he doesn’t even think of anymore; so had she. None of that mattered because by the end of their first conversation Pete had known that she was someone he needed in his life. Waiting for her to be single had been one of the most painful exercises in self-control in his whole fucking life. “Half that.”

She makes a little humming noise in the back of her throat. Then she asks, “And Patrick? How long did it take you to love him?”

“Ash-“

“Come on. Think about it. You know the answer. It’s Patrick. How long did it take you? Be honest.”

Pete sighs and rubs his forehead. He’s definitely not thinking about checking his email now. He’s thinking about Patrick at fifteen in ugly fucking argyle that looked like crap on him and his stupid face and how he’d wondered what the fuck Joe was doing bringing this kid to band practice. Patrick had opened his mouth and tilted Pete’s entire goddamn world on its axis then just never fucking stopped. 

He’s avoided talking about this with Dr. Morgan, skirting the issue no less than five times since he made his qualities list. Ashlee knows him better than Dr. Morgan does though. She knows his soft spots like only an ex you really loved can. She’s never been afraid to poke them. It’s part of how they managed to last as long as they did. 

Pete lets out a loud sigh directly into the speaker of the phone. “Ten minutes,” he admits finally. “Maybe fifteen. I don’t know exactly. I wasn’t wearing a watch.”

“So explain to me why can’t you be in love with this guy?” Ashlee asks him. She’s completely serious and god, he really doesn’t want to think about it. No, really. It’s too fucking much. “You’ve spent hours with him already. That’s just overtime for you, baby.”

“It’s fucking crazy that’s why,” Pete snaps, thoroughly pissed off though he’s not at angry at Ashlee exactly. He’s more angry at Patrick for existing and being amazing and brilliant and pretty much his other half except for how he isn’t, at his Dom for being such an elusive fuck, at the universe in general, and at himself in particular. “I’m trying to roll back my crazy quotient some, Ash. And how about because I don’t know his name? Or what he looks like. Or anything about him.” 

“Except for how he treats you and makes you feel and takes care of you,” she counters. “I don’t know. Call me the crazy one but that’s one of the most important things. The way you made me feel and the way you treated me was always what mattered the most to me when we were together.”

Pete’s hit by a wave of guilt so intense that it freezes him. He’d tried. He had. She had too, and Pete doesn’t know that he’ll ever stop being sorry that it hadn’t worked. “Jesus, Ashlee, I don’t-“

“No, Pete it’s okay. Ancient history. I’m not trying to guilt you here. It’s just,” she stops and he can hear her take a deep breath. “What little I’ve heard makes it seem like you’re having a hard time lately, and you tend to bring a lot of that on yourself. I don’t know, if you can make one part of your life less difficult, don’t you think you should? I mean, just so that you can handle the other difficult shit you can’t fix?”

Pete deflates. He managed to forget how often she was right since the last time they really spoke. It’s annoying. “I hate you and your flawless fucking logic.”

She laughs in his ear and he misses her so goddamn much. “Bow down, bitch.”

Pete shivers. “I think me being willing to bow down is part of the problem, not the solution.”

She laughs again. “You couldn’t have figured this out before we broke up? You’ve got the worst timing on Earth, Pete, you really do.” He can hear her smile through the phone. “Jess is having some big thing so I’ll be back in LA for a couple days next week. That’s why I called. I’m going to see you right?”

“Fuck yeah.” He misses her like crazy. He always likes to see her, even though it hurts a little. 

On top of everything he’s also been kind of lonely lately. Andy and Joe have The Damned Things. Patrick’s been trying to get ready for SXSW because he won’t bring a band what with being a tiny, soloist control-freak now. Gabe’s out on tour with Cobra Starship and Mikey’s in recording mode so even though he’s back in LA, Pete never gets to see him. The whole of My Chem has holed themselves up in the studio and pretty much cut off contact with the outside world for the last few weeks. Mikey hasn’t even been answering his texts. The only reason Pete knows he’s not dead is because he managed to get a hold of Alicia. 

“I don’t know, things are crazy right now,” Alicia had said, sounding tired. “I’ll make sure he knows you called though.”

So Ashlee coming out to LA is like a present it didn’t occur to him to ask for. He’s always happy to see her, but now especially is good timing. “You need a place to stay?” Pete asks. The unspoken question of _or are you going to brave staying with your family_ hangs in the air. 

Ashlee breathes out a rough sound that rustles over the phone. He gets that it’s not a simple answer. If she stays here at his place, they’ll probably fuck. It’s almost a guarantee.

Pete’s shit at control. He knows exactly which buttons to press to turn her into putty in his hands and even now that they’re not together anymore, he has very few compunctions about pushing them. They’re friends and as far as he’s concerned, it’s all good so long as they’re both single. 

It’s not just that he can though. Pete misses being touched by hands he knows. He misses smiling and kissing and getting off without it hurting, as much as he fucking needs it when it does. Ashlee’s some of the best sex he’s ever had in his life and he’s pretty sure that’s mutual. It’s just… complicated, is all. 

“Think about it,” Pete says after a full minute of silence. “You’ve still got a key and the code for the gate. If you want to just turn up, you can. If not, we’ll schedule some time to hang out. I just want to see you.”

There’s more silence and then she chuckles, low and smooth in his ear. “Sorry,” she says on another little laugh. “For a second there, you almost sounded like a mature, reasonable adult. It caught me off guard, is all.”

“Hey, I’m sort of an adult.”

“I know. Yeah, I’d love to crash at your place. It sounds like a good break. I’ll call you when I get into Van Nuys. You should go check your email. See if your lover’s emailed you back.”

Pete prickles but he boots up his laptop anyway. “He’s not my lover,” he mutters.

“Sure he’s not.” She laughs again, loudly, probably throwing her head back. 

Pete is not thinking about her naked, about what it would be like if she could do the things to him that his Dom could. Really. He’s not. Okay, mostly he’s not. Mostly he’s just looking forward to seeing her. 

“So?” she asks.

“So what?”

“So has he gotten back to you yet?”

“You are a bad influence,” Pete huffs, suddenly nervous. He clicks around his desktop, avoiding his inbox.

“You sound like my dad talking about you.”

“You should definitely take it as a compliment then.”

“Pete, you know I hate suspense. Just tell me.” she says. 

He listens to her breathe as he finally opens the inbox and finds it. It’s a date, an address, a time, and the usual instructions for him to wait. He lets out a shuddering breath and reads it to her, his voice hoarse.

He winces and waits for her reaction. Because yeah, he tied her up once and she used to bite, hard, but this is not the same. Instead all she says is “That’s when I’m supposed to fly in. Do you want me to just let myself in and wait for you after I meet up with Jess?” 

Pete laughs and closes his laptop. “I fucking love you.”

“I know. I love you too, Pete. I’ll see you next week. Have fun and be safe okay?”

“It’s not supposed to be fun, I don’t think.”

“Be safe anyway.”

“Yes mom.”

“Oh, see, that’s just gross.” She giggles before hanging up. 

He programs the address of the hotel into every personal electronic device he owns. Then he tries to get through some of the work that’s been piling up while he threw himself into the fashion show and his therapy. It doesn’t really fill the week but it keeps him from going insane. 

The hotel is one of the nicer ones in LA without being infamous. Pete only goes a little incognito – button down shirt, his blocky Gaga-esque sunglasses, and a hat he stole from Patrick years ago instead of a hoodie, and tries not to think too hard. He gives the concierge at the front desk, an older man with a neatly trimmed salt and pepper beard who probably isn’t a fan, his name and gets a smile in return. “Of course, Mr. Wentz. We’ve been expecting you. Everything is as requested.”

“I don’t need to give you a credit card or something?”

The concierge gave him a cool, unfazed smile. “The bill has already been taken care of, Mr. Wentz. I’m to escort you to your room and make sure that everything is in order.”

Pete wonders if that’s code for something. It’s not until he’s being walked to a room on the top floor and the concierge is opening the door for him that he realize two things. One, whoever his Dom is, he’s not doing bad for himself. He may not be on Pete’s level, but he’s probably pretty fucking comfortable. 

The other thing he realizes is that the concierge hasn’t given him a key. He holds out his hand, palm up in universal sign for “gimme”. The concierge just smiles and glances down at his hand. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wentz, did you need something.”

“My key?”

“I’m sorry, the guest renting this room hasn’t authorized you to have a key to his room. I’m to assume that if you leave you won’t be coming back.” 

Pete’s mouth goes Neveda desert dry in a heartbeat. It’s a new set of rules, different ones from the club. It’s a beautiful room but when the door closes behind him and the concierge leaves, it’s essentially a cage. 

It’s a really expensive, well-furnished cage but still a fucking cage and he was either in it or out. No in-between. The thought makes him shiver, and he clenches his fists to reign that shit in, in front of the overly polite man smirking at him. 

The concierge points to the bed with a gloved hand. “He left us a letter for you. We’ve taken the liberty of leaving it on the pillow for you. He told me to tell you that he would be with you shortly for your meeting and that you should be ready when he arrives.” He quirks a brow at him in a way that Pete is sure is reserved for only the really well-liked high class escorts. Like he’s Barney and Pete’s Vivian and this is Pretty Woman or something. “Can we get you anything?”

“No thanks, I’m good. Uh-“ Pete shoves his hands into his pockets looking for his wallet to tip the guy. He hits his blackout mask and his fingers fail him.

The concierge just holds up his hand. “No tip necessary. Enjoy your stay, Mr. Wentz,” he says. His voice is completely emotionless but he gives Pete that favored-hooker smile again before stepping out of the hotel room and closing the door behind him.

Pete burns about five minutes checking out every corner of the room. He checks out the satellite TV and takes inventory of the minibar. He even fucks around with the toiletries in the bathroom before he gets the stones to go to the bed and read the letter. 

He’s hoping for handwriting, something, anything that’ll give him a fucking clue even though he doesn’t want to know, not if his Dom won’t tell him. It’s typed though, standard copy paper folded into thirds and the instructions are in black ink, standard size twelve Times New Roman. 

The list of orders is simple and direct, easy even. Taking a shower, getting naked, and lying down on a bed with Egyptian cotton sheets isn’t exactly a punishment, even if he is blindfolded. Pete’s actually started to get used to the dark. Once he has his commands, Pete is tripping over himself to obey.

He rushes more than maybe he needs to but he doesn’t know when his Dom is going to get here exactly. There’s always the chance that if Pete’s not ready when he arrives, this will all fall apart. And Pete just- he can’t. He’s worked too hard and too long to fuck it up now. He needs it too badly. 

So his hair is still soaking wet from the shower when he pulls the sheets back and flops down on the bed’s white sheets. He’s still not really used to not wondering over the state of hotel sheets. Too many years in Motel 6 flea traps with his sleeping bag between him and the sheets, probably. He makes himself relax this time, not think about the past or the future or anything but the confining pressure of the blackout mask as he secures it over his face. 

One of the skills Pete’s picking up is gauging time in the dark. It keeps him from going crazy as he rests in the dark, worrying the sheets, shifting, rolling onto his side or back, futzing with the pillows. He’s starting to use clues. At Passive Acts, he tends to use songs blaring through the speakers. Here in the hotel, it’s the sound of footsteps in the hall, conversations and TV coming through from the next room, traffic outside. 

His best estimate is that it’s maybe fifteen minutes between putting on his blindfold and getting on the bed and the sound of an electronic key in the lock. He hears the door swing open and sits up a little on his elbows. It’s stupid. It’s not like that’s going to help him see but the impulse doesn’t seem to care.

There’s a hand on his chest, shoving him back down, hard. “I told you to lie down,” his Dom practically growls and fuck. Fuck, Pete could get off just to his voice. It’s low and rich and smooth. It wraps around Pete and turns his whole brain inside out. 

“Yes sir. Sorry sir,” Pete mumbles, tripping over himself to get it out. He tenses beneath his Dom’s hand – callused and warm on his breastbone, his fingers reaching up towards his thorns. Every second his skin touches Pete’s, his breath comes a little faster.

“Yes you are,” he agrees, curling his hand and digging into Pete’s skin with short, blunt fingernails. “You’re going to be so fucking sorry. Do you want that?” He pushes a little harder, his nails pushing deeper and Pete’s breath catches. “You want me to make you sorry?”

“Yes, sir,” Pete manages, hoping that he’ll break the skin, that it’ll bleed and scab. If he thought he could get away with it, Pete would beg him to leave him with something to feel afterwards. 

He doesn’t draw blood though. It just aches for a moment and then disappears. “Safe word?” his Dom asks, just like he always does before he gets started. 

It makes Pete’s bones loosen up in a way it hadn’t before he started seeing Dr. Morgan. Pete can recognize how valuable that is now, how fucking amazing. He didn’t before, but he knows now. “Hemmingway.”

“Rules are the same as at the club. You take what I give you or you say it, and it all ends. Your punishment stops if you can’t handle it, but you don’t get your reward for taking it.”

Pete nods because he doesn’t trust himself to speak without breaking. It’s been almost two months since he had this and it feels almost like the first time. He's nervous and anxious and excited and turned the fuck on and ready. He’s so ready. He feels like he’s been ready forever.

His Dom doesn’t speak again for awhile. Pete has to track his movement by sound and what little sensation he can pick up. Pete knows that he gets up by way the bed responds to his weight leaving the mattress. There’s the sound of a bag being unzipped and the clink of metal. He tries to think of all the things they could be when the bed dips again. 

His Dom is quiet as he lifts Pete’s his wrists, one at a time, to wrap them in soft leather cuffs. They’re nicer than the ones that were attached to the St. Andrews cross and the bondage table in the dungeon. The cuffs are part of his personal collection. Pete can tell just by the way they feel. Pete gets a weird rush at the thought of wearing something that belongs to his Dom, like maybe that makes Pete more his. 

He doesn’t dwell on it though. His Dom is moving Pete’s arms up to the headboard. Pete hears the sound of metal clacking against wood before he feels something hook onto the cuff on his right wrist. He repeats it with Pete’s left wrist then pulls something, chains probably, and Pete’s arms are pulled further out until they’re practically immobile, stretched up and away from his body like they were on the cross. 

Pete’s breathing hitches when the first cuff goes around his ankle. His Dom attaches it to the bottom of the bed and Pete feels himself sinking into the restraints and an edge of panic rising simultaneously. It’s no time at all before Pete’s spread eagle, exposed and completely vulnerable. 

The number of things he could do with Pete like this, sprawled open, flash through his brain so fast that it’s all just one messy blur. There are no Dungeon Master here. There are no built-in checks to protect him like there were at the club. No one is watching who could pull him out. It’s a different level of trust and Pete feels like a fucking moron for having taken this long to realize it. 

“You okay?” his Dom asks, his voice a whisper; his hand returning to Pete’s chest, which is heaving under his touch. 

“I- Yeah. Yes. Yes, sir. I’m fine.” Just fucking terrified. If he went too far, if he broke Pete, he wouldn’t even be able to give a description to the cops. It’s scary but it also makes him hard and want to push up into the touch. “I’m okay.”

“I’m not going to hurt you right now,” he murmurs, and Pete feels himself relax, just a little. A much bigger part of him is disappointed. “You’d enjoy it too much. This isn’t about you enjoying it. You’re supposed to be sorry.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I really fucking am.”

“You will be,” he agrees. “You need a time out.”

Pete is so surprised that his mouth runs off without his brain’s permission. “What the fuck do you mean _time out_?”

There it is. The crash of open palm against Pete’s cheek. It smarts and leaves heat in its wake. Pete can’t hold back his moan. He tries though. Really. “You should know who I am by now,” his Dom hisses when the sound of the slap fades from the air.

“Sir,” Pete gasps because he knows. He may not have a name or a face but Pete knows exactly who he is. “Sir, sir, please, sir.”

“You asked. You’ve got it. You’re out of control. So you’re going to take a time out to think about the people you hurt. And you’re going to stay in time out until I think you’re sorry enough,” he says, leaning away from Pete and for something from the bag. 

The thinly veiled frustration in his voice reminds Pete sharply of Patrick and Andy and Joe, of the hurt and anger they’d thrown at Pete over this. It makes him think that yeah, maybe a time out wouldn’t be the worst thing. Except that his Dom is back with. Something. He can’t figure out what.

“Sir, what the fuck?” He’s not even sure what he’s asking.

“Noise cancelling headphones. I don’t want you distracted while you think about what you did. I’m still in the room if you need me,” he says. 

That’s the last word he says to Pete before he fits the large, soft headphones over Pete’s ears and flips a switch. Pete’s worn theses before. Patrick’s got a pair he uses on tours when Pete and Joe are driving him crazy. They all use them when they’re recording too. Pete had his sight then, and the freedom to move, and music pouring through to replace the outside world. 

This is nothing. It’s complete fucking nothing. It’s blackness, and silence and stillness. The only things holding Pete to the real world are his restraints and the bed beneath his back. Everything else is just gone. 

It’s not like on the cross, where he had the pain of the clamps and the pulsing bass line to ground him. Here he’s just floating in the dark. He’s fucking empty and alone and God. Oh God. The panic starts to rise before Pete knows what it even is.

Pete flexes his hands and feet because they’re the only things that will really move. He can’t stay still like this. He can’t just stay in the nothing. He can’t _be nothing_. It’s torture. It’s his worst fucking nightmares made into reality. It’s like he’s walked into the hollowed out hole in his heart and gotten stuck. 

His throat and tongue feel like they’re making noises. His brain says that he’s whimpering, begging. It tells him that he’s saying things like “Please, sir, please stop. Stop it. Please make it stop. I’m sorry, sir. I’m so fucking sorry. Please, just let me up, sir, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, fucking please.” 

He can’t hear himself to know if he’s really speaking, though. His voice might as well be gone for all he can tell. Maybe he’s not saying anything. Maybe it’s all in his head. There’s no way to tell. There’s no way to tell anything but how many times he’s clenched and unclenched his hands into fists. Nothing beyond that has any grounding in reality.

It’s worse knowing that he isn’t alone. It’d be easier if he were. Pete could forget, for a second, that this is about him and his fuckups if he could block out the fact that his Dom is still in the room, watching him. Judging him. He’s waiting for Pete to be worthy of him again. This is how he’s supposed to do it. Only Pete can feel himself riding the razor edge of pure fucking insanity the longer he lies under and he doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to get there. 

Pete thinks he lets out a noise in the back of his throat as the thought makes something inside him unhinge itself. He doesn’t know what it is exactly but it’s wrapped in nervous energy, tight and constant. It seems like forever but at some point, in all the nothing, it just comes apart. It cracks off like a dead tree branch breaking under too much weight. 

He can see himself all of a sudden, like he’s looking in a mirror instead of staring into the dark. It’s not real like his reflection so he can’t look away. He just has to stare down all the ugly, broken, beautiful pieces of himself. It burns his brain with clean pain that makes him sag into the mattress. 

From there he goes limp, like he’s tapping out of a fight. His mind goes to the quiet white place that he’s gotten to know so well from his other sessions. He aches there in a calm, steady pulse that has his mouth is moving. Over and over the same thing. It’s not until deft fingers pull the headphones off that he realizes he’s murmuring a litany of “thank you” on breaths that could be sobs. 

“Shh,” his Dom whispers, stroking his fingers over his mouth. Pete makes the noise stop but his lips keep moving until the fingers slide between them and his thumb is rubbing the side of Pete’s jaw. “Suck for me, good boy. Suck and calm down. You took it so good. So proud of you.”

He keeps talking and Pete wants to wrap himself in the sound. It’s possibly the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard in his life. The thought makes Pete groan against the fingers in his mouth because Patrick, Patrick’s supposed to have his heart when it comes to sound. But his Dom strokes his hair with his other hand and gently fucks his mouth in a slow but steady rhythm that keeps Pete from focusing on anything else. 

“Want to fuck your mouth for real,” he sighs, his spit-slick fingers sliding easily between Pete’s lips now. “Want to watch you take me. You would be such a good boy for me, wouldn’t you?”

Pete moans and nods as best he can. He wants to beg for it. He does beg as soon as the fingers leave his mouth. He manages a few breathless pleas that earn him a caress on the cheek with warm knuckles and the sound of a zipper coming down. 

It’s awkward. Pete hasn’t blown anyone since Mikey and that was five years ago. It’s never been his favorite part of being with a guy, but he used to be okay at it. It’s easy to remember how and he wants to be good. Pete wants to be hot enough and tight enough and good enough that his Dom gets addicted, that he never leaves again. 

He thinks that like this, sprawled on his back and almost completely immobile, his Dom is doing more work than he should have to. He’s leaned over Pete, knees pressing his shoulders down into the mattress as he fucks Pete’s face slow and sloppy. It takes the sensation to another level that makes Pete so turned on he’s worried that he might do something stupid like burst into flames, but it’s not enough. 

Pete wishes he could see him. He wants to know what his Dom looks like, towering over him, using him. He wants to know if he smiles or frowns or bites his lip. He can hear the thin breathy sounds of pleasure but he wants to know what he looks like when he’s close like this, eyes sliding shut or wide open, watching his cock disappear between Pete’s lips. 

The fantasy can’t be as good as the reality just out of his reach. It’s impossible, but it’s still pretty fucking amazing. It makes Pete moan again, long and low around his Dom. 

That is the right thing to do because a hand fists in his hair and pulls hard, pain lacing across his scalp. Pete does it again, and again, his lips and jaw slack. 

It makes him pull tighter, thrust faster, push harder. He’s close and Pete is the reason. He’s trying to remember how he used to swallow, trying to prepare himself but instead of coming in his mouth, his Dom pulls back and a thin streak of hot, wet come lands on his cheek and across the bridge of his nose exposed by the mask. The next one gets on his jaw but the last two land on his chin and lips. 

Pete freezes for a second, shocked. It’s so fucking gross. It’s the kind of thing you see in bad porn and laugh at.

Underneath that though, there’s a primal animal part of his brain that is fucking reveling in the sensation of being owned like this. He’s someone’s territory. He’s property. He’s been marked and it’s so fucking hot that he’s struggling to take in air. 

Fingers skate over his face, collecting the mess then press against his mouth. “Lick.”

Pete does, without thought or hesitation. He curls his tongue around blunt fingers and takes it all, bitter and salty and strange after years since the last time he did this. At this point, he’ll do anything so too keep his Dom touching him. He whines around his fingers, lifting his head to follow them as he pulls away.

“Beautiful,” he says, moving beside Pete instead of on top of him. He says it so quiet Pete barely hears him. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Pete,” he whispers before he kisses Pete. 

Pete could kiss him forever. He’s gotten used to only really being kissed like this at the end of a scene. To have it now, while he’s still hard and deep under makes it more intense than some full out sex he’s had. This is better, this is slow and intimate and he can try and log all the tastes in his Dom’s mouth. 

“So good.” He keeps saying it between kisses. “Such a good boy for me.” The more he says it, the more Pete feels like he can believe it. It feels almost true when one of those steady hands wrap around him. 

“Don’t come yet,” he breathes into Pete’s ear. “Wait. Wait for me to tell you when. Wait for my word.”

Pete tries to say the words, “Yes sir.” What comes out instead is a strangled moan that sounds almost inhuman. He doesn’t know if he can actually do what he’s being asked but he’s trying. His hands are balled into fists so tight that his fingernails may break the skin. It helps him focus on something other than the lips on his neck and face and the hand on his cock for a little while, but then it’s not enough. He’s tied down. His whole body’s beyond him and he can’t get away, make it less, do anything but take what he’s given.

“I can’t,” he chokes out, so close that he feels like his body is going to come exploding out of his skin. “Can’t. Sorry, sir, fuck, sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry. Just come for me.” He twists his wrist almost viciously and his other hand grabs one of Pete’s nipples and twists. Hard. “Come now. Wanna hear you.” 

Pete comes screaming a second later, his body arching off the bed as much as he can with his limbs chained down. He feels wrung dry and turned inside out. He’s out of his fucking body, floating somewhere else where the world’s just splashes of color behind his closed eyelids and raw feeling. 

He drifts back to himself to a warm press of clothed body against his. The fingers of his Dom’s right hand stroke through his hair, smooth and shallow. The rhythmic strokes bring him down to Earth, a little at a time. 

“You okay?”

Pete nods and makes a humming noise in assent. He pushes his head into the touch as best he can. He just wants to stay, warm and touched like this. He feels still on the inside, like when he’s in the middle of a beating only quiet and gentle. It’s totally alien yet beautiful. He doesn’t want it to end.

It doesn’t. Not for the longest time. Pete’s arms and legs ache from being stuck in one position for so long but his hands and feet haven’t started to tingle with loss of circulation. He’s held together from the outside. For right now, he doesn’t have to worry about coming apart. 

Being that secure is so fucking soothing that he could almost sleep, as amazing as that is. He would too if it weren’t for the fact that he doesn’t want to miss a second, not one breath of the man beside him. 

He shifts a little, the mattress dipping and rolling. Pete tries not to flinch, not to gasp. He’s too far out of it to stop himself from begging through. “Sir, don’t go.”

The hand in his hair doesn’t slow or stutter. It just rakes over his scalp in a steady rhythm. “I’m not.”

“Please, sir.”

“Shh.” Lips press to his upper arm, soft and warm against his skin. “Don’t think about that. Focus on me.” Another brief dry kiss, closer to Pete’s shoulder. “I’m here.”

It’s an order and, with Pete’s brain like it is, obedience is the only option. His world narrows to the sound of his Dom breathing, the way his fingers and hands and body radiate heat and affection, and the buttery leather still wrapped around his wrists and ankles. It’s like soaking in a hot tub times a billion, only dry.

Pete’s in the middle of his best impersonation of a formless puddle when the gentle movements finally stop and his Dom sits up. His whole being’s so lax that he’s already undone the restraints on both Pete’s ankles before his brain can catch up with what’s going on.

Delayed responses hold him back from speaking anything until there are fingers on his wrists. Then it’s like someone hit fast forward on his brain and it comes out in a smushed together blur of words. “Sir, wait. I’m not- I’m not ready yet. Please don’t.” 

There’s a pause then the fingers trail off the leather to Pete’s hand. They knead his palm then push out towards his fingers. “We’ve been here six hours. You need to get up.”

Pete takes exactly half a minute to be stunned at how long the scene’s lasted. He doesn’t know how long each part has been, though none of it could’ve been longer than the nothingness, even if it only lasted fifteen seconds. Then he says, “I’m okay. I can go longer, sir. I’m fine. I want to.”

“You’re a greedy little shit is what you are. This isn’t about what you want, remember? It’s about what you need.”

“I’m not-“ Pete starts, feeling a little unsteady. Then he laughs, flexing his feet then drawing his knees up so that his feet are planted flat on the bed. He’s still a little endorphin high and he’s still restrained. He sort of won this one even though he knows he’s not the one in control here. The paradox is a little intoxicating. “Yes, sir. If you want to fuck me and see how greedy I am, I’d love to show you, sir. If that’s what you think I need.”

There’s a low grinding noise beside him. It’s a direct hit. Pete’s pretty sure he’s sunk the guy’s battleship with that one. He can guess what he looks like, legs spread, knees pointed towards the ceiling, hands still chained to the headboard, naked. He’d fuck himself like this. Well, if he were that big a narcissist he would anyway. He’s thinking too much. He can already feel his brain speeding back up and he fidgets, hoping his Dom will see it too. 

“I’m not going to fuck you now.”

Pete’s too relaxed to be too disappointed. He’s more just stunningly clear-headed all of a sudden. “You busy Thursday, sir?”

“You’re-“ he breaks off and lets out a breath between clenched teeth that flutters against his skin. 

It’s an aborted noise that reminds Pete of Patrick. It’s from the same category of human response as the little frustrated strangled noise Patrick usually lets out before he screams ‘You’re fucking unbelievable, you know that, asshole?’ at him and storms out of the room/studio/parking lot/club. Pete is an expert at dealing with people making sounds from that place. 

He also flat out fucking wants. He wants completely and single-mindedly. He wants and Pete’s entire life has been built by going for what he wants, unreservedly. “I’ll be so good, sir, I promise. Just, please. Thursday. Or Wednesday if you’re busy. Give me instructions and come to my place and just. I want you to use me.” _I want to be yours_ , Pete doesn’t say. “Use me.”

“Use you.”

“Anything, sir. For anything. Do anything. I want you to fuck me but just, use me. No one’s-“

“What?” he asks. His voice has dropped a half an octave. It curls out of his chest like smoke from a dragon’s cave. 

“Made me feel like this,” Pete finishes. It’s raw, unfettered truth. “No one makes me feel like you do. I just… I want it all.”

“We’ll discuss it Wednesday,” he repeats, so low and deep it’s almost inaudible. “But not today.”

Pete grins, unable to stop himself. “Please, sir. I need-”

“I’m going to unhook you now,” he says instead of giving a direct answer. “When I do, roll over onto your stomach across my lap.” He swallows loud enough that Pete can hear it.

“Yes, sir.” Pete is fucking vibrating, his adrenaline rebooting like he didn’t think he’d be ready for as the chains come off. He scrambles onto his front and fumbles blind into his Dom’s lap. He’s wearing slacks, something soft and a little thick. It’s a stark contrast to Pete’s expanse of bare skin as he stretches over him. 

“I want you to count,” he growls, still in that extra low register that makes Pete feel hot all over even though he can’t get hard again. He’s kneading Pete’s ass as he speaks, first one cheek then the other. “I want you to remember that I give you what you need.” Then he brings his hand down, palm open, fingers pressed tight together hard and fast, on Pete’s ass. 

Pete never got spanked as a child and aside from that one time with Ashlee, he’s never done this before. It hurts way more than he was expecting but maybe that’s because his nerves are already on fire. He manages to force out a strangled “one” as he flinches under the spanking but at the same time he sinks down. Two and three send him back under hard and fast, like diving into a pool. It’s easy because this good safe pain that echoes up his spine, through his teeth and fillings and then back down out his feet is what Pete needs. 

Pete’s been craving this, clawing his way back to it since December. Now he has it. It’s worlds less severe than the belting or the flogger. It’s just skin stinging skin but after everything he’s been put through today, it’s too much to bear. It breaks him down fast and easy because he’d only just barely collected the shards of himself back together.

He’s probably crying but he doesn’t care. He cares that, for the first time, he can reach back and fist his hand in the fabric of his Dom’s pants, his shirt, and hang on as his hand came down again and again. It’s somehow more intimate than the orgasms. 

Pete’s not in his own head by the time his Dom gets to double digits. He’s a writhing pathetic mess of noise and sensation, but it’s different. He chokes out number twenty through sobbing breaths. It’s tame but its way more than Pete can handle after everything. It sends him over the edge. The gentle quiet is still there, cut through with sharp red slices of pain that make everything inside him feel brighter and fucking gorgeous. Then it stops, catching him mid-fall. He’s being pulled up and forward, his face pressed into a solid shoulder. Pete wraps his arms around him and clings, too far gone to feel anything but secure. 

“So good. So good. You’re so fucking good,” his Dom chants. It’s the best kind of brainwashing, resetting Pete from the inside out. He glides on it as he’s gently laid back and covered with the sheets. The hands are back in his hair, stroking in time to the mantra until Pete’s breathing is even and smooth and he feels something close to peace. 

Then that stops too and Pete knows. He knows what’s coming and he tries not to feel his heart break. “What’s my count?”

Fingertips skate down his jaw to his neck where the rough warm hand comes to rest. His thumb strokes over Pete’s pulse once. “A hundred,” he says and Pete is comforted by how fucking sad he sounds. “If you need to stay, you can. Check out isn’t until eleven am. ”

It’s wet behind the blindfold because of the spanking and the sensory deprivation and the space between this time and the last. It is. It is not because his Dom is walking away from him. Again. “Thank you sir.”

“Wednesday,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to Pete’s forehead. “I’ll email you instructions. Send me everything I need to find you.”

“Yes sir,” Pete says, waiting for the kiss, trying not to beg for it this time. He’s not disappointed. 

The kiss, when it comes, is lazy and deep. Pete fists his hands in the sheets to keep from echoing the way he takes Pete’s face between his palms. He pulls back slowly, catching Pete’s lower lip with his teeth for a moment and then he’s gone. Pete waits, counting slowly as he zips the bag and leaves the hotel room. 

Pete manages not to pull the covers up over his head until he hears the door click shut behind him. He feels that’s very mature of him. Real growth, he thinks as he pushes his blindfold off and stares at the white fabric pulled over his face. He kind of wants to stay. 

He wants to try and sleep in that bed even though it’s full of sweat and brand new sense memories. He could do it. Only Ashlee got in sometime in the last, he glances over at the digital clock on the bedside table, fuck, seven hours. It was late afternoon when he arrived and now it’s nearly midnight. 

He gets dressed with shaky fingers and slides the sunglasses back on before he leaves the room. He doesn’t think for a second it’ll hide the _fucked out and used up_ vibe he’s probably emanating. The concierge is still on duty as Pete leaves the lobby and he gives Pete that same knowing smile. “Hope you had a pleasant stay, Mr. Wentz. We look forward to seeing you again soon.”

Pete doesn’t duck his head as he walks out. He’s not ashamed or anything and he’s still too deep in the headspace to care. So deep that he calls a taxi instead of driving his car home. He slumps in the back seat, thinking that if he didn’t know Ashlee were waiting for him, he’d have the cab driver make a beeline for Patrick’s instead. He’s raw and fractured and Patrick’s good at fixing that. He untangles Pete as easily as his Dom seems to break him. He fixed it the first time Pete was in subdrop and if Gabe hadn’t stopped him last time, he’s pretty sure Patrick would’ve fixed it again. 

This time, though, he has Ashlee waiting. He’s obligated. Besides Patrick’s probably sleeping, like a normal sane person. Or he’s busy trying to finish his set prep for SXSW. Pete doesn’t think about what it means that all he really wants (besides to go back and rewrite the last hour into a reality where his Dom stays) is Patrick after all this. He makes himself focus on Ashlee instead. It’s easy because when he gets his front door open she’s on him, arms tight around his neck, thin frame squeezing him close. 

She pulls back then takes his face in her hands. “You look like shit, Pete.”

“Well you look amazing,” Pete says giving her a wavery smile. He feels like he looks though. The endorphins and adrenaline are wearing off and the crash is imminent. He can recognize that now. Every second is an invitation for that crawling, gaping pain to make its way into his chest and head as he drops. “I missed you.”

She’s beautiful. She’s fucking stunning but he wishes that she was someone else. He only hates himself a little for the thought as he tilts his head to the side and looks down at her. “Hm?”

Her eyes narrow as she studies him. “You look high.”

Pete waves a hand. “I just got done.” He’s sinking, fast. Pete can feel it, the way his brain is sliding into the dark place. He just can’t find the brakes. 

Ashlee frowns, “I thought you were meeting him at five.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Jesus Christ, Pete. I…God, you look ready to fall over.” She catches him by the waist and steers him into his bedroom. 

Any other day, he’d be pulling at her top, hooking his thumbs in the waistband of whatever pants or skirt she happened to be wearing. That had been his original plan. Work off whatever excess he had from the scene with Ashlee. Snuggles. Dinner. A fuck ton of conversation. Rinse, repeat. Now all he wants as she lowers him to the bed and pulls off his shoes is to be held. 

She tugs off his socks, pulls back the covers and crawls in, pulling him with her. She tucks his head against her shoulder and her fingernails stroke the back of his neck. He shudders and squeezes her tight around the stomach. 

“You’re going to be the best mom ever,” Pete says, into the fabric of his Revenge shirt. “The best.” He swallows hard because she’s not going to be the best mom ever with him. 

On top of everything, it’s too fucking much. She’s going to leave too. He’s going to be rattling around his big Young Hollywood home until he goes crazy and finally finishes what he hadn’t meant to start in that parking lot.

He hates that he keeps falling apart. He fucking let someone do this to him, begged for it like a starving man for food. He hates that he can’t stop even more.

“Baby,” she murmurs, holding him back. “Baby, baby it’s okay. Don’t cry. Shh.” She presses her mouth into his hair. “Pete, it’s okay.”

It’s not. It’s not. He isn’t sure how he can get that through to her, because he’s still way too deep. So he just clings to her and tries not to shake. She keeps talking but it’s not working, she can tell, and she sighs and pulls his hands off her. 

“Pete,” she says, keeping his hands in hers. “I’m going to go make a phone call. I’ll be right back, okay?” She kisses his hands and puts them down on the bed. 

She clicks her tongue in her cheek and Hemmy pads into the room, jumping up on the bed and curling up next to him. “Watch him,” she says only this time she’s talking to his dog. Hemmy’s always liked her more than him so he makes a little agreeable whine and puts his head on Pete’s thigh.

She rolls off the bed and pads into the bathroom, grabbing his phone as she goes. She closes the door behind her but it doesn’t close all the way. Pete strains to hear her because Hemmy is not a person as close as he comes sometimes and he doesn’t want to be alone. 

“Hey. No, it’s Ashlee. Yeah I’m in town.” She pauses and then sighs. “Yeah, no, can you come over? I just- I don’t know. He went to that S&M guy he’s kind of dating and now he’s just-“ She takes in a shaky breath that he can hear through the door. “He’s crying, Patrick. I’ve never seen him cry before.”

There’s another pause and then Ashlee snaps, “No I didn’t do anything. For God’s sake.” More quiet and then, “I don’t know. He didn’t say. Well maybe if you hadn’t disappeared off the face of- No. No I’m not blaming you. No it’s not your job, but- I just- Will you let me finish a fucking sentence? Fuck!”

Pete winces and curls in on himself a little tighter. She’s angry and it’s his fault. He’s too raw for this. He didn’t mean to. The longer he’s still, the more he remembers just how sorry he is.

“Just come over. Please. He needs more than I can give him.” She laughs. It’s sharp, not like the round open sound she makes when things are genuinely happy. “I know I don’t, Patrick.” There’s another pause then she practically growls, “Yeah well, that’s always been the problem, hasn’t it? That’s why I called you. So just come over.”

He’s got an iPhone so she doesn’t slap it closed. She does slam open the bathroom door and mutter “Dick” under her breath. She throws the phone a little too hard onto the bed. Pete flinches and Hemmy lifts his head with a confused noise. 

“Patrick’ll be here in an hour. I,” She looks at him and sighs. “Can I do anything for you? Pete you-“ She breaks off again, her pretty face crumpling briefly and Pete has to wonder what he looks like that he’s doing that to her. “I’m not sure what to do.”

He puts his head in her lap and winds his arms around her waist. “Just stay.”

She does. She stays and she tells him about rehearsals for Chicago. She tells him about how Jessica’s worried about her new reality show but how she can’t stop talking about India and Uganda and Thailand. “She’s happy for the first time in a long time,” Ashlee tells him. “It looks really good on her.”

Pete doesn’t say anything. He just listens to her talk because it’s keeping his head above the dark waters in his mind he’s so close to sliding under. She’s telling him about how next time she’s going to try to get time off because Jess adored Thailand and Ashlee’s never been, when Hemmy woofs out a breath and hops off the bed. He pads out of the room and down the down the hall to the front door. There’s a little barking and then a minute later he returns, Patrick on his heels. 

Hemmy returns to his place on the bed, curled up behind Pete’s knees with his chin on Pete’s calf. Patrick doesn’t say anything for the longest time. He just stands in the doorway, leaned against the jamb. 

“God, Pete, what did you do to yourself now?” Patrick asks finally. He’s wearing jeans and an ancient Midtown t-shirt but he looks tired. He sounds upset with a side of burnt out and Pete looks away.

He’s not up for this. Not now. He wants Patrick here but not like this, angry and looking as exhausted as Pete feels. It’s the exact opposite of what he needs to pull himself out and that doesn’t make sense because this is _Patrick_.

Ashlee tenses beneath him. “Help or get out,” she snaps. “He’s a big enough mess. I don’t need you to make it bigger. Especially if you’re not going to help with the clean up.”

“He’s not a child. And he can hear you, you know,” Patrick replies and Pete would smile if he could find the energy. “You’re not deaf or asleep, are you?””

“Patrick.” His name comes out of her mouth as a warning and Patrick sighs. There’s a bit of rustling, a few muttered grumbles and then Patrick is pressed tight against Pete’s back. 

Pete wants to sob because he’s solid. He’s solid and safe where Ashlee is soft and gentle. Between the two of them he fucking unlocks. It’s a relief so intense that he can feel a couple tears sneak out the corner of his eyes onto Ashlee’s pants. He lets go of Ashlee with one hand and reaches back blindly. Patrick catches his wrist and holds. It’s enough that any of the sharpness he took with him from the hotel smoothes out and he melts back into the puddle being he’d been on that hotel bed. 

Pete lets out a sigh and closes his eyes. Ashlee’s fingers glide through his hair again and there’s a long span of quiet before she speaks. “You’re a regular snake charmer.”

“He’s falling apart because he can,” Patrick whispers back. “You know he’ll take a fucking mile if you give it to him.”

“I don’t see you getting up,” she retorted. 

“I’m already here. It’d be stupid to leave now.”

“Yeah, because you’re worried too.”

Patrick doesn’t have anything to say to that. Pete knows that’s as good as a yes. Patrick’s spent his entire adult life worrying over Pete. Pete feels genuinely guilty for that. Right now though, it’s kind of hard to let it bother him. He’s already paid for it today.

Besides, the gaping emptiness is starting to roll back. Slowly but surely, it’s receding. If he can just focus on them, on Ashlee and Patrick and Hemmy falling asleep on his leg, maybe it will go away all together.

“What do you want me to say, Ash?” Patrick whispers at last. “He keeps going back. He knows what it does to him and he keeps going back. It’s his choice so this… this is too.”

“Whoever he’s fucking must’ve kept him tied up for like seven hours. That’s a borderline hostage situation. Anyone’d fall apart after that.”

“Then he should fucking stop,” Patrick says, and Pete can hear the effort in his voice to stay quiet. “Gabe texted me a picture of his back after last time. Did Pete tell you about that? That he asked to have his back laid open with a freaking belt? He should just stop if he keeps coming back broken like this.”

Ashlee makes an annoyed noise. “I don’t think it’s that simple. He’s in love with him.”

Pete doesn’t tense. He doesn’t jerk or pull away. He doesn’t do anything but try to focus on their breathing under the conversation itself. He doesn’t want to think about what she’s saying. Even if it is true. 

Patrick shifts, lifting his upper body but not letting go of Pete. “Ash, come on.”

“I know what it looks like. I mean, this is my first time from the outside but, I know. And you know too. You know. So you should talk to him. He listens to you.”

Patrick is quiet again. Pete tries to time his breathing to his like he did back in the van days when he could sleep. It’s moderately successful.

“Okay. So he doesn’t really listen to anyone, but you more than anyone else.” Ashlee says. “Stay okay? Just… be here. He can’t get that asshole to love him back but we do. Be the bigger man already.”

“That’s not funny.”

Ashlee giggles and Pete presses his face towards her stomach, following the sound. “Oh my god, I hadn’t thought of that but yes it so is. You can do it, bite-sized. It’ll be big of you.”

“Twiggy, I’m plenty big enough to break you in half.”

Ashlee giggles again, pressing her hand to her mouth. Patrick huffs out a hot breath of almost-laughter against the back of Pete’s neck. There’s no talking after that. They slide down and around him, wrapped around him in a completely different kind of security than the leather restraints. The effect is pretty much the same though. Eventually Pete is floating, drifting, and gone.


	5. Chapter 5

“You’re doing what now?”

Pete sighs focuses his attention on his Capt’n Crunch. “Don’t.”

Patrick’s got his right leg crossed over his left, the bottom of his barefoot resting on the edge of the table. He’s in the same jeans and t-shirt as last night and he looks just as tired. He’s staring at Pete and they’re both waiting for Ashlee to get out of the shower. “Oh. Yeah. Don’t. Sure, I’ll just ignore how you’re having a fucking stranger come over here and fuck you in three days. Because that’s what good friends do. They let each other be unbelievably fucking stupid. ”

“Patrick.”

“What? What did you think I was going to say? Seriously, have I ever been okay with the way you’re doing this?”

Pete just shrugs and drags his spoon through the milk. It’s easier than looking Patrick in the eyes. “I’m not asking for your permission.”

“Then why did you bring it up?”

Pete looks into his cereal like it’s a crystal ball that’ll reveal the answer to him and not just soggy grain clumps. He gives himself a count, only to ten, so he can take the time to think like Dr. Morgan keeps talking about. “I don’t know. I used to tell you everything. Not doing that’s been getting me in trouble so, I’m trying to fix that.” 

Patrick deflates in front of him. He just seems to shrink a little as he rubs his face with his palm. “God. Damnit.”

“Probably.”

“You’re not safe doing this,” he says, his foot twitching out a nervous rhythm against the edge of the table. “It’s not a club or even a hotel. He could really hurt you here, Pete. He already does. Don’t you even care?”

“Of course I care.”

Patrick just looks at him. Pete looks back because he is done hiding. If he can put his shit out there for millions of people, he can put it out there for Patrick, who always helps him get rid of it. 

“You don’t have to trust him.” 

“I don’t. I really, really don’t.”

“Okay, that’s fair,” Pete concedes. “I do.”

“I do too,” Ashlee agrees, padding into the room in a baby-doll Star Wars shirt and a pair of Pete’s sweatpants, her hair wrapped up in a turban made from one his dark green towels. “What are we talking about?”

“Me being stupid and reckless.”

“Oh. Same stuff or anything new?” She takes the bowl from his hand and sits in the chair on his other side.

“Variations on a theme.”

“Is any of it getting through?”

Pete grins at her. “Nope.”

“Does it ever?” Patrick asks, pointing his question at the ceiling rather than at either of them. Pete doesn’t think it’ll answer him. 

She takes a bite of his cereal and nods. “Mmm. So then why are you guys bothering again?” She scrunches up her nose a little and looks down at her bowl. “Where’s your sugar?”

“I have no idea,” Pete replies in answer to both. 

“Have you been shopping in the last year?” she asks, setting the bowl on the table and getting up. She wanders to the cabinets and starts opening doors. “I mean, seriously Pete, how do you live?”

Patrick is looking at him as she asks that. It’s a long stare that feels like he’s looking through Pete and out the other side. It makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He meet’s Patrick’s gaze, shakes his head and says “I don’t know. I just do.”

“Found it.” She settles back down with them, folding her legs underneath her, tailor style and pours about a pound of sugar into the cereal. Yeah, Pete’s definitely not stealing it back now.

Pete pulls a face because that always grossed him out, and Patrick too, and that was after eating gas station burritos for five years. Patrick doesn’t smile back or even really react. He just keeps staring at Pete, like he can get through by sight alone if he just looks hard enough. 

“Patrick, I can call you,” Pete says, just to get some other reaction out of him. “When it’s over so you know I’m not dead, I’ll check in with you if it bothers you that much.”

Patrick frowns. “You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m busy Wednesday.”

That draws Pete up short. All this fucking talk about how it was stupid and unsafe and now Patrick wasn’t willing to help him be smart and safe? “What the fuck are you doing that you’re so busy I can’t call you?”

“I’m just busy. Christ, are you my parole officer now?”

“I thought you only got a fine for that traffic thing,” Ashlee chimes in and Pete can’t help but laugh. Patrick just glowers harder.

“I’m fucking busy. Maybe I like some of my personal life to be personal, all right?”

“I could just call you,” Pete says, casting a glance at Ashlee. 

She shakes her head, spoon dangling from her mouth. “’S when I’m flying out,” she says around it. “I’ll be in the air when you call.”

“Call Gabe,” Patrick says, looking away now and glancing at the fraying cuff of his jeans. 

“Gabe’s-“ Pete stops. He’s not sure where Gabe is actually, on a bus on his way to a venue in Europe somewhere probably. Pete hasn’t been keeping up with where exactly. “I don’t know if I can get a hold of Gabe.” 

“You can always try,” Ashlee chirps. “Worst case, you leave me and Patrick messages. Best case, Gabe’ll at least be around long-distance to help you this time. Which, really, if he’s already over here, you should have your lover do it.”

“He’s not my lover.” Pete sighs. “You just like saying the word lover.”

“Mmm,” Ashlee agrees with a little smile. “I really do. Lover’s an awesome word. But he totally is your lover.”

“That’s not love.” Patrick says in a low voice, still looking down.

“Like you know shit about it, Trick,” Pete shoots back. “Enough alright? Cut it the fuck out already.”

“How the hell can you think it’s love when he hurts you like this, Pete?” Patrick asks. 

Great. _Now_ he won’t meet Pete’s gaze. “It’s not that simple. He fixes me too. He lifts me the fuck up and holds me together. I’m not saying he loves me or anything. But he cares. He cares a lot. I can tell.”

Patrick doesn’t look up and none of them speak for a tense moment. Ashlee’s hand snakes out and touches Pete’s arm before Patrick says, “Call Gabe.”

“I said I would.”

“You didn’t. But I, look, I’ve got to go.”

“You don’t.”

Patrick stands and runs a hand through his hair. It still weirds Pete out a little, that all of a sudden he’s stopped wearing hats so much. It goes a long away to ground him though. “I’ve got studio time this morning.”

Pete thinks that might be a lie, just like he’s not sure the whole busy thing holds water. He’s learning when not to push though, so he nods. “Okay.”

“I’ll see you,” He walks around the table and gives Ashlee a kiss on the cheek and a one armed hug. “In case I don’t see you before you leave,” he says.

“You better,” she says, hugging back. “Go be brilliant.”

“I’ll try.”

“You will be,” Pete says. It’s one of his world constants. Give Patrick an instrument or a mic and he will be brilliant. It’s like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west and Hemmy being the best dog ever. It’s just facts.

Patrick gives him another look, one Pete doesn’t quite understand this time, and pads out of the kitchen. Pete has a crazy impulse to follow him but Ashlee’s hand is back on his arm so he doesn’t. He just listens as Patrick opens the front door and shuts it behind him.

“You’re just a hot mess aren’t you?”

“If you don’t stop with the bad jokes, you’re going to get hurt.” Pete warns. She sticks her tongue out at him and scoots her chair over so that they’re sitting with their hips pressed together in comfortable silence. He rests his head on her shoulder and sighs. 

He calls Gabe after Ashlee goes to meet up with her sister for the evening. Gabe’s half asleep when he answers. “Do you have any fucking idea what time it is?” he growls down the line, from a half a world away.

Pete does some rough timezone math. “It’s only like one in the morning, man.” Gabe almost never rolls in before three no matter where in the world he is. There’s a very short list of reasons why he’d be in bed this early.

“It’s a hotel night.”

Ah. Yeah, that’d be one of them. “Oh. Shit, man, sorry.”

“Yeah. So is this important? Because if it’s not I’m going to hang up on you. I think Sandy’s still up.”

Pete grins into the phone. “Sandy?”

“Dude, fuck you. State your business or hang up. The rates are fucking ridiculous over here and for some reason my label won’t cover the expense.”

“Well I can assure you the label head feels really bad about it.”

Gabe makes a gross noise in disagreement. “Yeah I’m sure he does. Seriously, Pete, the fuck? If you’re lonely there are people in the continental United States right now not trying to sleep you could call.”

“Maybe you’re my favorite.”

“Maybe you’re full of shit and want something. Just ask man. Like I’m gonna say no after everything?”

“I’m seeing him on Wednesday. Well, I never see him but fuck it. You know what I mean. He’s coming over to my place and I need to give someone the _I’m not dead, honest_ phone call after he leaves only everyone I fucking know seems to be out of touch that day. I don’t know. It was made clear to me how fucking risky having him over to my fucking house and shit is so, whatever.”

“Oh come on,” Gabe yawns, fabric rustling in the background as he moves. “It’s not like he hasn’t been over a hundred times before. It’s not that big of a fucking deal.”

There’s a frozen moment where Pete’s world picks up and tilts on its axis. Then time speeds back up and Pete can breathe again. “What?”

“What what?”

“What do you mean he’s been in my house before?” It comes out a whisper as his brain flips through a veritable rolodex of people he’s had over since he bought the house. There’s too many. He can’t pin anything down except for the wave of unease at the idea that floods him.

“I didn’t say anything,” Gabe says, fast and jumbled together. “I don’t know who we’re even in talking about. Which he? You need to be more specific.”

“Gabe,” Pete manages. 

Gabe takes a deep breath that rattles in Pete’s ear and then says, “I’m drunk.”

It’s so fucking untrue that Pete can’t help but laugh. It gets caught in his throat and strangles him. “No you’re not.”

“Yes I am. There was booze after the show. Absinthe’s fucking legal here. I’m tripping balls with the green fairy. I’m in-fucking-sensate.”

“Gabe,” he says again. He doesn’t really have anything beyond that. The idea that the man he’s been looking for is right under his nose and has been since the beginning is short-circuiting his brain. 

“You don’t want me to tell you,” Gabe groans. “You fucking told me not to tell you. It was two months ago and I’ve fucking sat on it so just- I’m trying not to tell you so just let it the fuck go okay? Pretend I’m drunk. Forget I said anything. You can always call me whenever man. I’ll try to remember to have my phone on Wednesday and Thursday.”

“I should be really fucking suspicious shouldn’t I?” Pete chokes out.

Gabe heaves out another breath. “I kinda promised Sandy that night that I wouldn’t mess with this. But if I were you, maybe I would be. That’s all I’m saying.”

“This is fucked up.”

“You have no fucking idea, dude. You really fucking don’t.” 

Pete nods even though Gabe can’t hear him from nine thousand miles away. There’s this buzzing in his ears and he can’t really think. 

“Pete?”

“Hm?”

“Don’t stress over it. Like you said, on his terms right? That’s what you said you want.”

“Yeah.” Pete is sitting down now. He doesn’t know if he did that before or after Gabe told him. Everything is a little jumbled up in his head right now. “Gabe, who-“

Gabe cuts him off. “No. No, man, okay? Just fucking no.”

“You can’t say no.” Pete sputters, annoyance tethering him back to the Earth’s surface before he can spin into an orbit of pissed off never before seen by mankind.“I fucking asked. You can’t just say no.”

“Oh yes I fucking can. I’m on another goddamn continent. I can say whatever I want.”

“I’m just supposed to fucking live with this then, the not knowing?”

“You haven’t known since November, Pete. You’ve become the king of not knowing. Just chill out. Have a good time. Or don’t. Whatever. Just don’t freak out okay? You’ve come really far so don’t-“ He breaks off, no doubt looking for a delicate word which in and of itself is un-Gabe-like.

Gabe’s no pillar of stability but he’s the one who took Pete to the ER all those months ago. He knows how nuts Pete was as well as anyone. Pete can cut him that break. “Lose it,” he finishes for Gabe. 

““Yeah. Don’t fucking lose it. Cancel before you do that.”

“I’m not going to cancel,” Pete says, surprising himself. He’d have thought this was a deal breaker, if he’d gone over the scenario in his head. It’s not though. It makes him feel a little sick and a lot nervous but it doesn’t make the want, the need, any less compelling.

“Okay.”

“You’re not going to argue with me?”

“Dude, I’ve seen how you are remember? That’s shit I can’t touch with a ten foot pole. You do your thing, I’ll do my thing. You can call if you want.”

Pete uncoils a little. Gabe is Gabe and that’s dependable in its own cracked out way. “Generous of you.”

“Isn’t it? Look, Pete, it really is late and this is like the last hotel night we’re going to get for like a week and a half so…”

“So you want to have long-distance phone sex with your lover,” Pete says with a lightness he doesn’t really feel. 

It gets a laugh out of Gabe though. “She’s kind of maybe my girlfriend. Maybe. Dude, who even uses lover anymore?”

“Ashlee.”

“She in town?”

“Yeah.”

That gets another laugh. “Your life, Pete. You can fucking keep it.”

He calls Dr. Morgan after Gabe hangs up. It’s after close of business but Pete’s got her personal cell number for emergencies. She made him practically sign a contract before she gave it to him regarding what did and did not constitute an emergency and they’d spent an entire session where Pete did nothing but hash out hypothetical situations where he could and couldn’t call. 

This apparently counts as an emergency because she doesn’t tell him to journal about it and call her back during her business hours tomorrow. She mostly listens, occasionally making encouraging noises. When he’s done she takes a deep breath and asks “What do you think you should do?”

“You’re supposed to tell me.”

“No,” she replies without missing a beat. “I’m not. I think you’ve gotten me confused with your mother. It’s not my job to tell you how to live your life. It’s my job to help you look at things from a clinical and objective outside perspective.”

“Okay so tell me what you’ve got from your clinical outside objective?” Pete asks, trying not to let his impatience and frustration leak into his words. He’s not sure why he bothers, though. She picks up on it all anyway. It’s her job.

“What you _should_ do is keep in mind what you’ve learned and be careful not to push yourself emotionally if you don’t feel comfortable. How you take that from here’s up to you. As far as the next course of action, you’ve already decided haven’t you?”

Saying yes to her, out loud, makes it real in a way it wasn’t in the conversation with Gabe. There’s implications and baggage and just so much shit that he isn’t really ready to deal with. But the bottom line is still – Pete wants his Dom here, no matter who he is. 

“I’m glad you called though. I’ll make sure that your afternoon appointment is still on the books for Thursday. We can discuss it in greater depth then.” 

Ashlee doesn’t say anything when he tells her, curled up on his bed. It’s the first time they’ve been here, alone, without having sex since they started talking again after the break up. It’s novel, really, that as much as he wants her, will probably always objectively want her, he doesn’t really want to go there. He thinks that this, just being with her, is better than complicating things again would be. 

She nods her head against his shoulder and snakes the remote to his plasma out of his hand. She flips it to E! and hits mute. “Have you gotten your email yet?”

“Yeah.” It had come in about fifteen minutes before he got off the phone with Dr. Morgan the day before. Pete had still had her voice bouncing around in his head when he replied with an email of his own that could get him into so much trouble if it got leaked that he couldn’t really think about it. 

“Have you answered?”

“Yep.”

“So?”Her elbow gives a gentle dig into his side.

“So. Tomorrow. He’s coming over at nine after I get back from taking you to the airport. I’m supposed to be waiting for him in my room, blindfold on.” She looks at him with wide eyes and he chuckles. “Yeah, it’s not any less ridiculous than it sounds when you’re doing it. It just feels like it is.”

“Did he say how you’re supposed to be?” Pete shrugs and Ashlee smiles a little. She’s enjoying being in the planning stages of this whole thing a little too much. “Have you thought about kneeling? Like on the bed or maybe on the floor at the foot?”

Pete pulls back so that he can look down at her in surprise. “No. What the hell, Ash?”

“I don’t know. I’ve seen Secretary a few times, I guess.” Ashlee chuckles and pushes him down so that she can put her head back on his shoulder. “You should do it. If he didn’t tell you not to it’ll probably mindfuck him a little. He’s got it coming with all the head games he’s played on you.”

He takes a minute to process that then squeezes her around the shoulders. “You’re an evil mastermind.”

“Mmhm,” she hums. “I’m just waiting for my membership to come through with the Guild of Calamitous Intent. I’m totally going to start arching you. It’ll be fun.”

Pete laughs because she’s possibly the coolest girl alive and she’s always going to be a little bit his. “You do look great in spandex.”

“I’m thinking lycra and possibly some body armor.” She nudges him again. “Do it. Just to see how he reacts. Then call me tomorrow, let me know how it goes.”

“Stop living vicariously through me.” Pete chides, finally poking her back. “Your own life isn’t exciting enough?”

“Pete, no one’s real life is like this. I love you, and I feel for you but, I mean, come on. This is more entertaining than Grey’s Anatomy.”

“That show is such shit.”

“But it’s compelling shit. Promise me you’ll call?”

“Cross my heart.”

“Cross something reliable.”

“I don’t think I have anything.”

“I’ll have to take that then.”

They spend the rest of the time pretty much just like that. They don’t talk about it again. It’s different than every other time, but its better. The thin strain that comes with the sex and expectation is gone and she’s just his friend Ashlee. He hates to see her go. 

He takes her advice. When he gets back from taking her to Van Nuys, he shaves, showers, and settles himself on the floor at the foot of his bed in just his boxers. It’s new and he realizes as he kneels there and puts on his blindfold that he’s never done this before. He’s never gone to his knees for him before. It feels like something big. 

He tries not to think of it too hard as he hears the front door open. Hemmy’s out back so there’s nothing but quiet footsteps until the door opens. Then there’s a sharp sound of inhalation of breath. 

His Dom murmurs “Jesus,” on the exhale. It makes Pete smile a little but he says nothing.

He just sits there in a pair of boxers, ass resting on his heels, his arms hanging loose at his side. Warm fingers brush his shoulder, trailing over the necklace of thorns as he walks a slow circle around Pete, like Pete’s a piece of art that he wants to see from all sides. 

By the time he gets back to where he started, Pete’s deep under and pliant. It’s hard not to go there under that kind of attention, slow and precise and completely focused on him. It’s easy to forget that there’s anything more than this.

Fingers take his chin and his Dom murmurs, “Stand up. We need to get you to the bed.” He presses up on Pete’s jaw and he goes fluid and easy, letting himself be steered by light touches on his back and face, guiding him backwards until the backs of his knees hit the edge of the mattress.

He gives Pete a little shove at the center of Pete’s chest and he drops down without hesitation or resistance. It’s a metaphor, Pete thinks. The parts of his brain that haven’t shut down yet know there are lyrics in this, in letting someone control his fall. 

“Get up to the pillows and roll over onto your stomach for me,” he says. His voice is a low rumble that Pete feels more than hears. 

Pete goes, lulled by their mingled breathing and the sound of the bed springs moving with him. It’s just so fucking quiet. There’s none of the fear that there was in the hotel or the rush from the clubs. 

“You want me to restrain you,” his Dom says, too far away and not on the bed with him. “Do you need it?”

Pete actually thinks about it this time. He doesn’t usually. He just lets whatever’s going to happen, happen. But now, when he takes a second, he isn’t sure he does. He’s pretty sure he can be good without it. Then again, if things escalate, if he decides he wants to turn Pete out even so soon after the last time, he might not be able to behave. 

He goes with honest. It’s served him best so far. “Depends on what you want from me, sir.”

“Good. Good boy. Put your wrists together above your head then and leave them.” 

Pete does it, shifting his face on his pillows so that he can get his wrists in front of him. He bends his elbows and rests them on the pillows so that his hands are pressed together above his head, resting against the headboard. He maybe can hold this if he can keep resting it and doesn’t have to hold it up on his own. 

He’s surprised when his Dom wraps the same soft leather cuffs from the hotel around his wrists. His whole body relaxes as they’re bucked shut. He could’ve been good. He’s fucking relieved he doesn’t have to be. 

“Thank you sir,” Pete sighs as the cuffs are hooked together with a small metal clink. 

Warm skin trails down his spine, tracing over the Earth on his back, before gliding back up to cup the back of his neck. “This isn’t supposed to be a punishment,” he says, squeezing tight but not painful. “All you have to do is obey.”

Awesome. Pete can do that. He’s getting really good at that. He lets out a small breath and melts into the bed and the grip equally.

“You want me to hurt you,” he muses, his thumb rubbing over the pulse point on the left side of Pete’s neck in a steady rhythm. “You love it when it hurts. One day, I’ll make you bleed for me.” 

It’s almost casual, the way he says that but there’s a promise in “one day”. Pete can feel himself getting hard but he doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. He just counts his breaths, trying to keep them even, and waits. This is different. There’s something completely new about all of this and he doesn’t want to jinx it or change it or do anything that could throw off the energy that’s building between them. 

“Keep your face down and come up on your knees,” he orders, letting go of Pete’s neck. “I’ll take care of you.”

The bed shifts as Pete does as he’s told and his Dom gets up. There’s the sound of rustling fabric and metal. Pete feels exposed, ass up, head down, hands locked together. It’s oddly lessened when his Dom hooks his fingers in the waistband of his boxers and pulls them down to his knees and strokes his palm over the bared skin. 

“Safe word?” The question is not quite a whisper. Pete feels his mouth moving against the skin on the side of Pete’s hip as much as he hears the words.

“Hemmingway.”

“Good boy. I want you to keep count for me. Ready?” He doesn’t wait for Pete to respond. He just spanks him, open handed. He lands ten on each cheek, fast and hard, one after another. 

Pete is panting with the effort of keeping up the count. He gasps out “twenty” and pushes his face into his pillow. It’s not the most intense thing they’ve ever done but it stings and Pete can feel the haze creeping in as his Dom rubs in the impact with his fingers. A little more, a little harder, a little longer and he’ll slide out of himself and into that other place. 

The next blow isn’t with his hand. It’s with a fucking paddle about twice the size of one of those salon-quality hairbrushes Ashlee used to use. It’s not wood, leather maybe. Pete doesn’t know.

He’s so surprised that his count comes out on a shout and a laugh. He’d bet money his drill sergeant back at that fucking boot camp would never have imagined using one of those hazing paddles like this.

Pain shoots up his spine and down his legs but by thirty he’s gone from groaning to choked fits of near-hysterical giggling. It’s like knots of tension that have been tangling themselves up since he talked to Patrick and Gabe have come loose inside him. 

It doesn’t stop though, just because he’s laughing through it like a crazy person. It’s a steady one-two rhythm he can sink into himself. He’s a nerve-ending and a ticker that’s counting off mindlessly. Fifty has him wrung out and limp, breathing in long droughts of air through the fabric of his pillowcase.

“So red. Fucking gorgeous. Want to turn you inside out.”

“Please,” Pete pants. “Please, sir.”

“Beg for it, good boy,” he rumbles, pausing to bite at his hip. His teeth dig deep enough to make Pete yelp and then sigh as he smoothes over new indentations with his tongue. “Want to hear you.”

Babble comes easy to Pete. Begging is just babble with purpose and fuck, he has lots of purpose. He’s fucking empty and tired of being alone under his own skin and if he could just fix it, if he could just fill in the carved out places, that’d be enough. It’d be everything so just, please. 

Pete has no idea how much of that comes out but it’s enough. “Roll over, feet flat on the bed, knees up.” His Dom tugs his boxers off his legs then disappears from Pete’s senses again. 

Pete flips onto his back as best he can with his hands bound together. It’s awkward and he gets stuck on his side for a minute but he gets himself there and brings his hands down to rest over his chest. 

He has about ten seconds to lie there like that before the sound of one of those chains clinking catches his attention. Then that low voice follows. “Where did I say to keep your hands?”

Oh. Shit. Pete stretches his arms up. “Above my head sir.”

“How hard is it to do as you’re told?”

“Not very, sir.” He makes sure his hands are pressed against the headboard again. “I’m sorry.”

The slap lands so hard that Pete sees stars behind the blindfold. Sensation laces through him white hot and dazzling and he aches from more than pain. “For forgetting,” he says, then presses a soft kiss to Pete’s mouth. “For trying.”

Pete wants to follow him up, asking for more. He stops himself because he wants to be good. He’s already been punished once this week. He wants to find out what his Dom is willing to give him. 

He holds still as the chain is threaded through what must be some kind of ring in each of the cuffs. There are slats in his headboard and the chain clacks against wood as he threads it through them. Pete holds his hands still until the bonds are tight and his arms are immobile. 

More pain is what he’s expecting from there. Once he’s restrained, it’s easy to sink into a beating. What he gets instead is a solid, clothed body between his spread legs, lifting his right knee over a shoulder. It folds Pete up just enough to make his back protest a little before wet fingers wrap around his cock. 

He lasts about three strokes before the buzzing rushes back. Slow, rolling pleasure builds and makes Pete bite his lower lip. He’s a breath away from drawing blood when his Dom finally slides a finger, then two inside of him. It’s the first time he’s been inside Pete since that first scene and it draws a strangled cry from deep in Pete’s chest.

“That’s it. Let me hear you.”

“More,” Pete groans, unable to fuck up into his hand or down onto his fingers with arms held and his legs where they are. All he can do is take it and ask for more. “Fuck, sir, please. Please, more. Want, God, everything. Sir, fuck, fuck, more.”

“Greedy,” he murmurs but this time it sounds like a compliment. “Always asking for more.” 

He slides out from under Pete’s knee and adds a third finger, twisting inside even as his fist strokes down on his cock. It makes Pete’s head drop back and color explode behind his eyes. He’s close but he’s not there yet. If it hurt, if it was a little sharper maybe he could just fucking come already. 

His hands claw at the headboard like it will provide him with something to hold. It doesn’t though. All he has is the skin on his cock and the leather on his wrists and it’s not fucking enough. It’s like dying of thirst and being offered an eyedropper of water to drink. 

“Sir, sir, motherfuck, sir.” It’s the closest he can get to a request because he doesn’t want a drop. He wants a flood. He wants a fucking tsunami of feeling and if Pete can just make him see what he needs, then Pete knows he’ll give it. 

He lets go of Pete’s cock and rests his hand flat on his stomach over the bartskull. “Breathe, Pete, just breathe. Tell me what you want.”

“I don’t know, sir,” Pete chokes out on a breath like a sob. It feels torn from him as fingers keep moving, steady and smooth inside him. “I just want. Fuck. Everything. You. Can I have you?”

He sounds pathetic to his own ears. Whiny and desperate and just… pathetic. But he doesn’t care. Anything to get more. 

“Can you count for me?”

“No,” Pete gasps, trying not to break down and fucking cry. He can’t do this now. Not before he’s even had a chance to lose himself. “Don’t. Please, please don’t. Fuck, please.” He doesn’t care if it lands him another slap so long as he doesn’t fucking go. 

“Fifteen,” he says in that low rumble that’s even deeper than usual. He kisses Pete’s inner thigh but it doesn’t help Pete fight back the panic.

“I’m not- I’ll be good, sir, sorry. I’m sorry please.”

“Shh, easy,” he soothes, petting Pete’s stomach with his free hand like he’s a puppy and not a writhing, turned on mess. “You are good. You’re so fucking good. I’m going to take my fingers out, you’re going to count to fifteen and I’ll be back. Count for me and I’ll give you a reward.”

Pete nods, blind and desperate, ready to do anything so long as he doesn’t go. Then the fingers are gone, leaving him so fucking without and he counts. His words trip over each other, counting faster than probably his Dom wants.

He keeps his word and when Pete gets to fifteen, the hands come back. They pull his hips forward and up. Pete lifts them under the nonverbal command and a pillow slides beneath his lower back and he thinks _finally_.

This should be the part where his Dom fucks him. One deep thrust, that Pete can feel in the back of his throat. That’s not so much to want right? Instead he gets three thick fingers pushing back inside him, dripping wet and smooth friction but not enough. 

He presses hard against Pete’s prostate and the ability for speech abandons him. He can push back like this, ask for more. He can beg with his body and grind down but he can’t form actual words. There’s no other way for Pete to try and get him inside but to writhe and whine. 

The mattress shifts and Pete thinks maybe now. Finally he won’t be empty but there’s no slide out and burn in. There’s just more wetness and extra stretch and fuck. Fuck. Jesus fuck it’s a lot to handle when it’s been months since he even dabbled. It’s almost too much to bear. 

It takes Pete a second to realize what the fuck just happened. Then he’s choking because that is four. He hasn’t been ordered to count or anything, but that is a fourth fucking finger. It’s tucked in with the other three as it pumps a steady rhythm in and out but the burn and ache never lessens enough for him to ignore like it normally does. 

There’s no break, no stutter. It just goes on, buffeting Pete’s body from the inside and he’s so hard it hurts straight through and then out again. He’s a gasping, twitching mess and he’s glad for the chains holding his hands. His wrapped his fingers around them, grateful it gives him something to hang on to so long as his bed frame doesn’t give out. 

His Dom’s cheek is pressed against the inside of Pete’s thigh just above the knee, sweat making their skin slide slick against each other. He’s slowing down, spreading his fingers before pushing in again and building back up his pace. Pete lets out a loud sob because the pleasure is so acute there’s nothing else for him to do really. His options are limited to sob, moan, scream, and choke. 

“You said you wanted everything,” he growls, running his thumb over stretched skin twitching around his fingers. “You think you can take it? Tell me.”

Pete hears himself say yes, say please, say sir. He doesn’t remember making that decision though. He also doesn’t recall when he relearned English. His mouth’s just runs on autopilot because god, he’s never fucking done this before. Hell, it’s been ages since he was last good and fucked so yeah, he’s never taken someone’s whole hand. It’s a first. And he wants his Dom to have it. He wants to be able to give it. 

His Dom doesn’t say anything. There’s no sound in the room at all but the sound of their heavy breathing and the wet sound of lube-coated skin on skin. There’s a moment when he pulls his hand out that Pete can scramble together a few thoughts. His Dom breathing fast and shallow against his skin, breath hot. There’s a cap popping and cold lube hits his skin, so much he’s going to have to send his comforter out to be cleaned. 

That’s really the last thing he has the chance to notice before the push-burn-full feeling fills his body so thick that Pete feels like it’s pressing against the back of his throat. It lulls him into, if not comfort, than at least a rhythm he can brace for. Pete feels lips pressing against his inner thigh in a gentle counterpoint to the ache inside him and the next slide in is different. It’s too much, too fucking much and he’s making whining animal noises that start with N sounds and make no sense. No. No, it’s not going to work. It can’t fit. He’s going to break in fucking half. 

Only he doesn’t break. There’s a few minutes of desperate, blinding resistance then Pete’s body just gives in, like his will always seems to for this man, then his whole fucking hand slides inside, thumb tucked tight against his other digits. It hurts, deeper and different from anything he’s ever felt before but its own kind of devastating. It tears a scream from Pete, open-throated and wordless, and his back arches up as hard and tight as it can go for an endless moment before he sags, limp and pliant, his body clenching down so hard that all Pete can do is lie there and spasm.

When his Dom moves, it’s in increments so small that Pete doesn’t know if they’d be visible. He can feel them though. He can feel every fucking millimeter, knuckles brushing against flesh, fingertips scraping so gentle but still too fucking intense. 

All of his muscles, but especially the ones in his legs, are trembling like he’s standing naked in a Chicago blizzard. He gags on his own tongue as the fingers inside him curl one slow movement at a time into a fist and the awkward, stretched pain just makes him harder. More wet, more cold turning hot as he pulls back and then pushes back in, never withdrawing completely. Pete’s a ball of light and feeling literally wrapped around his Dom’s hand, writhing on the end of his arm.

“God, I fucking knew you could do it. My good boy,” His Dom chokes out and Pete whimpers in response, happy in some distant part of his mind that he’s breaking his control like this. 

Pete breathes as deep as he can and manages a strangled, “Please.” It’s one of the few words he’s got left and it does the trick. 

The fist inside him slides forward a little harder, balled knuckles dragging harder over his prostate than anything Pete’s ever felt and for a second there, he thinks he might actually have seen God. Then he’s crashing back to the bed and reality and whines again. 

“Pete, fuck, Pete,” His Dom says on a breathless sigh. 

His voice is higher than Pete’s ever heard it, so much that he sounds like a completely different person, and it stops Pete cold. He tries to sit up and winces, his breath catching in his chest, trapped between his ribs and his throat but it’s not from the pain. 

“Sir?” Pete asks because he can’t be. He just fucking can’t.

“I’m here,” he replies in a soothing yet shaky tone, flexing his fingers just a little to prove the point. It sends spikes of pleasure through Pete’s entire body but it doesn’t hide the fact that his voice is still higher than Pete’s gotten used to. Higher and smoother and familiar and God, oh God. 

Pete knows that voice. He knows that voice better than he knows his own and shit, he was such a fucking moron. He was so goddamn stupid that he can’t help the angry tears that burn his closed eyes. He takes a deep breath, willing them away and tries not to sound ready to fucking cry.

“Patrick?” Pete asks but fuck, his voice cracks on a jagged breath that’s not a sob. It’s not. 

Everything freezes and there’s no sound, no movement, nothing. It’s horrible because it still feels so fucking good inside and Pete knows, he _knows_ that he’s right. 

“Patrick, god, please. You can’t-“ What can’t he do? Pete’s fucking chained to the bed and blind and Patrick is wrist deep in him. God. So what is it that he can’t do exactly? _Do this to me. Lie to me. Fuck with me this way._ “Leave me like this. Patrick, fuck, you can’t. You can’t.”

Inside him, the fingers uncurl and twist, pressing hard in the places that had made Pete react the most severely and his Dom’s- _Patrick’s_ other hand wrapped around his cock, stroking fast and sure. 

“Then fucking come, Pete. Now,” Patrick says, not bothering to mask his voice anymore. Pete does, shattering into pieces so tiny he doesn’t think he’ll ever find them all. 

He eases his hand free and Pete rolls onto his side, arms twisting painfully against the chains, curling his knees up to his chest. He shudders, feeling raw and demolished and chokes out, “Hemmingway.”

“What?”

“Hemmingway. Hemmingway, Hemmingway, Patrick-“ His panic rises like the fucking wave he’d been wanting and crushes him. “Patrick, let me the fuck up, Hemmingway.”

Patrick’s fingers pull open the buckle on the right cuff first. The second Pete’s hand is free he paws at his face, pushing the blindfold up and off. He blinks in the low light of his bedroom and comes face to face with the Ralph Lauren logo on Patrick’s blue polo shirt as he leans over him, unbuckling the other wrist. 

He stares with wide eyes at Patrick’s sweaty face and tries to make this feel real. He doesn’t succeed so much as he makes the panic worse. He tries to sit up and winces. He hurts inside and those hateful tears threaten again, stinging his eyes.

“Don’t move.”

“Fuck you,” Pete spits. “I said my safe word. You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore.”

“Because you’ll hurt yourself, asshole. Fuck.” Patrick unclips the chain from one of the cuffs and tugs it through the slats on Pete’s bed frame so hard it’s a wonder it doesn’t snap out and hit one of them. 

“Don’t call me that. Don’t- Don’t-“ Pete’s breath stutters because he’s raw, okay? He’s torn to fucking raw shreds of meat inside and out, and Patrick is dumping the leather cuffs, chain, and yeah, that’s a fucking leather paddle into one of the old Glenbrook South duffle bags he uses on tours. The little detail is too much. It makes it too goddamn real. 

He’s been falling in love with Patrick all over again and he’s been fucking _lying_ to him, to his face, for months. His brain is spinning out and there’s a million things he wants to say but the only thing that he can force out is, “God, Patrick, _why_?” 

“Why, what?” Patrick asks, markedly not looking at him. His focus is on backing up his bag and he doesn’t lift his eyes as he speaks. “Why do I do it? I don’t know Pete, why do you? Why do any of us? Because it feels good. Because I like it. Because it’s who I am and because you- fuck, Pete,” he looks up then and his eyes are dark like Pete’s never seen them. “I’ve never had a sub who can take what you can.”

“That’s not what I meant. You know what I mean. You know. And I don’t- Patrick, why didn’t you tell me? You could’ve-“ Pete sits up then, his abused ass screaming at him in protest but he can’t do this fucking fetal and naked. He grabs the edge of his comforter and pulls it hard, wrapping it around himself and glaring at Patrick. “It’s been you since the fucking beginning and you never said _anything_!”

“When was I supposed to bring that shit up, Pete?” Patrick demands. He zips the bag closed with a violent yank and then rises to stand at the side of the bed, arms folded over his chest. 

“I don’t fucking know, how about the first time?” Pete snaps, anger making him feel heady and almost strong. “You know, before you flogged the shit out of me and then fingerfucked me in front of a room full of people. You could’ve said something then.”

“I did say something then. I said I knew you. What did you want me to say? ‘Hey, Pete, it’s Patrick. I’m going to abuse you and get you off now.’” Patrick rolls his eyes at him and the muscles in his forearms tighten visibly under the skin as he digs his hands into his arms. “Right. That’d have gone fucking great. You wouldn’t have freaked out over the fact that I was there or asked me endless questions about why I never told you I was into S&M or gotten up and gone and found a real stranger who wouldn’t know when to stop. I just-” 

Pete watches as he lifts a hand and runs it through his hair in an agitated gesture. Good, Pete thinks, he should be fucking agitated. Pete’s a motherfucking wreck and Patrick should be too. 

“I couldn’t fucking leave you like that when Envy showed me, okay? You could’ve gotten really fucking hurt. Do you get that? Did you ever get that I could’ve really goddamn hurt you.”

“You wouldn’t,” Pete says, tucking his knees carefully up to his chest again, wincing as he moves. He pulls the comforter tighter around him and rests his chin on his knees. “Not any way I didn’t want.”

“Exactly,” Patrick says, rubbing at the side of his nose where his glasses normally rest. “ _I_ wouldn’t but no one else would’ve known where you need to stop. They wouldn’t even have needed to be trying. You’d have just pushed shit too far and gotten broken. You know you never once set any goddamn limits for me, Pete. Not fucking once.”

“So you think you were protecting me.” Pete is pissed at how much fucking sense that makes and how pathetic it makes him sound. It’s not like he’s some helpless victim trapped in a cave with a monster or something. He’s a grown fucking man and he knew exactly what he’d been looking for. Mostly. He’d figured it out.

“Yeah.”

“How the fuck did you even know to protect me? Why were you there in the first place?”

Patrick stands still for a long moment then sighs. “Pete, who do you think told Alicia about that party?”

“Alicia.” Pete echoes and it rattles around his head a few times, the size of this. It’s like… it’s like those interviews where a reporter will interview the wife of a serial killer. They never know, they’re always surprised when they find out there’s bodies buried under the fucking porch, even though they should’ve known. Pete should’ve known. “Alicia knew about you.”

“Yeah. Back in ‘04, on that one tour, we were just- I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It was years ago and it doesn’t fucking matter.”

“Alicia’s known the whole time. And Gabe. And Mikey.” Pete hates lies. He fucking hates them and now he’s drowning in them. He wants to close his eyes, wants to block all of this out, but he needs to know more. 

“You and I both know when Gabe found out and Mikey didn’t know.” Patrick shakes his head in denial and thought. “Still doesn’t, I don’t think. Alicia called me privately after Mikey started looking for a place for you. It’s- Pete.” He stops, unfolds his arms and takes a step closer, his knees pressing against the mattress. He holds his palms face up around stomach level. “It’s not some big fucking conspiracy. You were dead set on getting into this and you were going about it so fucking recklessly. I couldn’t let you get hurt and if you’d known it was me, you wouldn’t have wanted me to do it.”

Pete laughs. He can’t help it. It’s just too fucking ridiculous. All of it, because if he’d have trusted anyone, it would’ve been Patrick. “That’s really your excuse for not telling me? You think I wouldn’t have wanted you-“

“Yes,” Patrick snaps, cutting him off. “Because I’ve known you almost ten fucking years and you’ve never wanted me like that. You’re a flirt but I know what you look like when you want someone and it’s never been me. So yeah, I didn’t tell you because…”

Patrick lets the sentence hang and Pete waits. It’s a new skill he’s developed recently and he apparently has Patrick to thank for that. He waits and watches as Patrick drops his hands to his side and stares down at the blue sheets visible now that Pete’s pulled the comforter off and around himself. His shoulders sag like air going out of a balloon. 

“Because?” Pete prods because he thinks he knows where this is going. He hopes he does. If it is, then he’ll get over being angry. Not this second, because he’s too fucking furious to even really wrap his brain around everything at the moment. But if Patrick’s saying what Pete thinks he is, he’ll deal. He really fucking will. 

Patrick says nothing and yeah, Pete’s not standing for that shit. Not for a second. 

“Because what?” he yells. He’s worn way the hell too thin and his rationality just got used up. “What fucking because could there possibly be, Trick? You fucking owe me a goddamn answer, so fucking tell me.”

“Because I was trying to get over this!” Patrick shouts back, balling his fists. 

He sounds crushed and Pete doesn’t care. Anger is winning out over hope that old wants could actually turn into something real. The betrayal’s too fresh for anything less. “What the fuck is this?”

“Pete.”

“No, I want to know.” Pete points at him accusingly from his cocoon of fabric. “I want to know what the fuck this is that made it okay for you to beat me and kiss me and fuck my face and suck me off and work your entire motherfucking _hand_ into my ass and yet not tell me who you were. Fucking say it.”

“It’s you, all right?” Patrick snaps, cutting through the air with his hands. Then he drops them, his shoulders going with them and he sighs. “Before Alicia and then Bob called, I was trying to get over you.”

Oh. Pete’s hand goes from accusatory to reaching. “Patrick.”

“It’s stupid, right?” He laughs, shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants. They’re khakis and there are lube stains on the knees where he must have spilled some getting Pete ready and more on his thigh where he wiped his hands. Pete has to tear his gaze away from the irregular blotches to meet Patrick’s wounded blue eyes. “You’re my best fucking friend but I’ve been more than half in love with you since I was sixteen. It was better for awhile when I was with Anna and Lisa but then, shit. Shit, Pete, I needed this goddamn hiatus okay? I needed the fucking space.”

“I know,” Pete says, tugging his hand back to himself when Patrick doesn’t take it. “We all did.”

Patrick shakes his head. “From you, Pete. I needed space from you so that I could stop wasting more of my life in wanting you when I couldn’t have you. I’m twenty-five and I need to get the hell over it already. It’s ridiculous. I’m fucking ridiculous.”

“You’re not.” 

“I am. I thought, I’d stay away and it’d go away. It always gets less when you’re not right in front of me but then, God, Pete.” He shakes his head again and looks up at the ceiling for a brief moment before meeting Pete’s eyes again. “You didn’t see yourself on that bench, on your knees.” His voice comes out a little rougher and a little sadder than before. “You were so fucking beautiful like that.”

Patrick trails off and for the first time since he recognized him, Pete feels that low heat in his chest that comes with his Dom’s approval. It’s a warm, safe, wanted feeling. He stares at Patrick’s familiar face as it suffuses his body again. He can’t really do anything else. 

“I’ve wanted you like that for years. Years. I was just there looking out for you but then, there you were giving me the chance to live one of my oldest fantasies.” He hangs his head and looks down at the ground, his smile self-effacing and miserable. “I wasn’t a good enough guy to walk away from that.”

“I wouldn’t have walked either if I knew,” Pete says, finally forcing his brain and his mouth to cooperate with each other. “I’d have freaked out. See me freaking the fuck out? But Patrick, I want you. I fucking love you. I’ve always loved you most, more than anyone else. Always.” He swallows hard around a burn in his throat. “How can you not know that?”

“Yeah you love me,” Patrick says, bending down and picking up his bag. “You’ve loved me for years. Like a brother. Like a friend. You think you’re in love with that side of me, the one that knows how to bend and break you but you don’t love me, Pete.” He makes his way towards the door as he speaks and stops when he gets there, turning around to face Pete. “That’s not all of who I am and you know it. It’s not even most of me so don’t fucking say you love me like that. You just love what I can do to you.”

He’s leaving. That realization hits Pete before the words to. He’s fucking leaving, _again_. “Patrick, don’t. Don’t fucking go. Stop running away from me.”

He sags against the door frame, a horrible parody of the last time he stood there. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be what you want me to be all the time.”

“You don’t get to unilaterally decide this and you don’t get to tell me how I fucking feel. We’re not in the fucking scene anymore.” Pete shouts, angry again but a whole new kind this time. This time it’s defiant and righteous and a lot more familiar. 

He moves to get up, to follow Patrick to the doorway, but his body screams in protest and he slumps back down, his back hitting the headboard. 

“Careful,” Patrick murmurs, expression softening just a little.

“I’m being careful,” Pete says, not bothering to keep the irritation and frustration out of his voice. “I don’t need you to take care of me or hurt me or anything. I want you to be you.” Pete holds out his hand, an invitation and a request. “I just want you to stay. Let me show you, okay?”

At first, Pete’s sure he’s going to take it. He can see the want in Patrick’s eyes and written all over his face. He wants to. He wants to come back to Pete’s bed and try and fit the shards back together. 

He doesn’t though. He shakes his head and closes his eyes, rocking back on his heels like he’s been hit by a wave at the beach. He’s going to say no.

“You don’t get to do this to me again,” Pete growls, forcing himself up and out of bed. 

His thighs and arms and hips and god, his ass really hurt but he’s not allowing this. Not one more goddamn time. He crosses the room faster than he should be able to and grabs Patrick by the shirt. He pulls him to him so hard it’s nearly violent and kisses him, hard and dirty.

He’s wanted to do this about five billion times since he first met Patrick and now there’s nothing to lose. The kiss is almost bruising and his tongue is forcing its way into Patrick’s mouth. Patrick stands frozen for what feels like forever before he kisses back, pulling the back of Pete’s head down with his free hand and moaning into it. 

This is what Pete always thought their first kiss would be like, if they ever had a real one. Frantic, messy, a little awkward and half on fire. It makes him moan into it because the stage kisses and drunken nuzzles are nothing next to this. 

Only unlike in all the hypothetical kisses Pete’s imagined, Patrick breaks away, panting and furious. He lets go of Pete and pries his shirt free. “This doesn’t prove anything.”

Pete’s jaw drops. He’s never had that happen before. It feels weird and it takes him a little while to get it back under control so he can talk. “You stupid, stubborn son of a bitch. “

Patrick doesn’t say anything. It kind of proves Pete’s point actually. 

“I’m in love with you and you’re leaving. You take pieces of me with you every time you do this, Patrick. Stop it all right?” He tugs the blanket tighter around him. It had fallen during the kiss and he tries not to look and sound too pathetic as he does so. “I don’t have anything to spare.”

“You think you’re in love with someone who doesn’t actually exist,” Patrick counters, looking down and away.

Pete shakes his head, even though Patrick is refusing to see him. “I’m in love with you. You. Pretty much since forever. I never said anything because it was a matter of maybe or definitely. Maybe it would work if we hooked up but I knew, I knew we’d be fucking amazing if we were friends and we were the band.” Pete wraps his hand around Patrick’s forearm. Patrick doesn’t look up and meet his eyes, locking them on where Pete’s touching him instead. “But there isn’t a Fall Out Boy right now.” He slides his hand down Patrick’s arm and takes his hand, lacing their fingers together. “There’s just me and you. So if you tell me you need space, I’ll let you have it but you are not leaving me again, Patrick. Not by running away like this. I’m not going to let you.” 

“I need space,” Patrick gasps, like he’s barely keeping his head above water. “Pete, please.”

“Okay. Just.” He squeezes Patrick’s hand. “This, what we had, with you dominating me? That’s not everything but it’s something. It’s something fucking huge. And I’m glad it’s with you because I can go deeper. I want to go all the way down with you.”

Patrick’s eyes are bright and shining when he looks at Pete again. He’s gorgeous, Pete’s always thought so, but it hits him again now. Patrick going like this isn’t what he wants but before he lets go, he leans forward and kisses Pete, the same slow, deep kiss he always gives before he leaves. The way Pete melts into it is practically Pavlovian but its better because he knows what it means now, that it’s the only way Patrick can show him that he wants to stay too. 

When Patrick untangles his fingers from Pete’s, Pete lets him go without a fight. It doesn’t feel so much like leaving when he goes this time. And maybe Pete can use some space too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the beginning of the D/s scene to the end of this chapter is one of my favorite things I've ever written in my nearly 20 years of writing, of any kind, NGL. Writing this what imagine this is what a pro gymnast feels like when she does a perfect floor routine and then sticks the landing. At the Olympics. When the Russian judge doesn't fucking like you (at the time the Russian judge was my depression).
> 
> It's been 7 years and I still fucking feel that way. Take the metaphor all the way and for those few thousand words: the choreo was on point, the execution was on point and I managed to stick the landing. You don't get that very often but I got that with this and I'll love this story forever if only for that.


	6. Chapter 6

Pete wakes Gabe up at around eight AM in whatever country he happens to be in now. He answers the phone irritable and still in the hotel with two whole hours before they have to roll out and wow does Pete not give a shit. He needs someone to yell at now that he’s showered and dressed and chewing Advils like they’re Skittles. 

Bottom line, as he rants down the line at a dollar seventy five a minute, is that Gabe knew. So Gabe is a good target and because he’s a better friend that Pete will ever be, he takes it for all of five minutes before he snaps, “Are you done yet, you little bitch?”

“Has your best friend been fucking you, literally and with your head, in secret for the last four months? No? Then shut the hell up.”

“Wait I thought you said he wouldn’t fuck you. And seriously, I never need to know that much about your ass ever again. Ugh.”

“Gabe I swear to God-“

“Chill out. I’m just kidding. Trying to lighten the mood because you sound like someone killed your dog.”

Pete kind of feels like that. Hemmy’s curled up next to him, though, safe and sound. He’s watching Pete with big sad eyes because he’s the best dog on ever and he knows that Pete’s upset. He’s awesomely psychic that way. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s not a bad thing either,” Gabe says blearily. “Shit, Pete, you’ve been hot for the guy since I met you and that was, what? Eight years ago? Nine? What’s the problem?”

Pete sags because now that he’s had a few hours to let things settle, he aches everywhere. It’s like there’s a space that Patrick hollowed out, a physical echo of what he does to Pete emotionally. That would be almost comforting if Patrick had believed him. “He thinks I don’t love him.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure he knows you like-like him. Jenny can pass him a note in study hall if you want,” Gabe chuckles. 

Pete closes his eyes and wishes that Ashlee’s plane would land already. He wishes that Mikey would end his self-imposed radio silence and pick up his goddamn phone. He wishes that he could call Patrick. Mostly he wishes he could talk to Patrick about this but he can’t and Gabe is utter shit at this part of being a friend. “It’s. Not. Funny.” 

“Okay so then what the fuck do you want me to do about it?”

“Convince him I’m serious.”

There’s a long pause and then Gabe sighs. “Right, that’s not going to happen because one, he’s more stubborn than you when he wants to be and two, I’m not getting involved.”

“Hate to break it to you, but you’re involved.”

“More involved. This is your messy personal shit. I’m not wading through someone else’s messy personal shit. I have my own and its waist fucking deep, all right?”

That makes Pete stop because he sort of knew, in an academic, “ha ha you fucking loser” sort of way that Gabe was hung up on this chick. This though, the tone in his voice, if it’s serious enough that Gabe’s that defensive, it’s pretty fucking real. “You’re that into Sandy?”

“Dude. Don’t fucking even.”

“What?”

“Look, I played Switzerland after I saw it was Patrick, among other things. If I’ve got to respect you and your crazy, you definitely owe me this.”

Okay, so he’s missed a lot. He’s been so wrapped up in his own bullshit that this got by him almost completely and he feels too guilty to just let it go, even if he should. “Gabe, man, I really like her. I don’t know what’s up with you two but she seemed like good people to me.”

“That’s because she is. She’s great people who isn’t here and can’t be dealt with when I’m on tour. So just let it go, dude, it’s way too early for this shit.”

“Yeah. Before you hang up can I have her number?”

“Whose?”

“Sandy’s. Can I have her number? She’s the only person I know who’s… you know.” 

Gabe does know and he groans. “Don’t bother her. She’s not like us. She’s got a real job and shit.”

“Hey. I have a real job. I have three. Four if you count Fall Out Boy. I’m on my way to being Ryan fucking Seacrest, I have so many jobs.”

“Yeah. Sure you do. I’m going back to sleep Pete. Nut up, take an Ambien and do the same.”

Pete mutters something anatomically impossible about what Gabe can do with his nuts and hangs up. His phone buzzes two minutes later with a text message. It’s a ten digit number he doesn’t recognize and the command _b nice 2 her_. Pete grins at the phone, saves the number, and sets “Summer Lovin’” as the ringtone. Then he follows Gabe’s advice and actually does take a sleeping pill so he’ll be conscious and fairly coherent with Dr. Morgan tomorrow.

It only half works. He’s conscious at least. He ends up having extra sessions on her weekend days off on top of the Thursday one his insurance covers because the first hour is basically just him ranting and raving like a recently committed schizophrenic on a psychotic break. He’s not done yelling yet apparently and Dr. Morgan just takes it. She takes it because when he’s done she gets to attack what she’s been trying to get at since he handed in his quality list. “Why don’t you talk to me about Patrick, Pete. What are you really upset about?”

All in all, Pete’s still not much clearer on that point after hours of talking to her. He’s got more questions than answers but hey, questions are better than mindless anger and confused hurt. Things with Patrick are too complicated to untangle all at once but he wants to. That he’s sure of. 

He’s starting to feel a little better as he makes his way home after the Monday session. It’s helped by the fact that he has a Mikey Way sitting leaned against his front door when he gets there.

“Holy shit you’re not dead,” Pete says into his shoulder, pulling him to his feet and hugging him tighter than maybe he should. 

“Fuck you,” Mikey replies, hugging back. Then he pulls back and tilts his head at Pete. “So, Patrick called Alicia. You wanna talk to me about why Patrick Stump is calling my wife?” He asks but he’s looking at and through Pete like he knows.

Of course, Pete can’t always tell. Wise and knowing is Mikey’s default expression. He looks like that even when he’s been utterly befuddled. 

“Things are kind of complicated right now.”

“Hm.”

“You?”

“Probably equally complex.”

“I’d love to know how it could be.” Pete holds up his keys in his left hand. “Wanna come in?”

“If you want.” Mikey shrugs. He waves a hand. “It’s kind of nice out.” Mikey’s from Jersey and Pete grew up with Chicago’s winter winds and compared to that, the light chill and bright sunshine of LA are cheery. Pete thinks he could probably use the vitamin D or whatever the fuck it is that sunlight’s supposed to do for the body. 

He lets Hemmy out and then he and Mikey climb onto the hood of Pete’s car. They lean back against the windshield, side by side, shoulders touching, and turned up towards the sky. For a second, Pete’s five years in the past on a field of grass or the roof of a bus or stretched out in an innertube at a water park, looking up at a sky just like this one. 

It’s comforting. Familiar. He misses the fucker when he’s in New York and even more when he doesn’t answer his phone. “Where’d you go?”

“We almost lost Bob,” Mikey says. There’s something raw hidden behind the flatness of Mikey’s voice that tells Pete that whatever that means exactly, it was almost very, very bad. 

Pete’s pretty sure it’s because of the weight behind the way Mikey says “we”. He used to talk about Fall Out Boy as a “we” like that. He remembers the four of them in a diner, Blink fucking 182 sitting at the next table, talking about how maybe, maybe when everything’s done, they should take a break. He remembers how fucking scary it had been when he realized he didn’t have a problem with that. He turns his head on the glass and looks at Mikey. “Fuck. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, we found him. Mostly. I think it matters more that he wanted us to look and that we tried, you know? Gee and Ray are writing some crazy shit, now that it’s all settled down some. It’s going to push everything back but I think it’ll be worth it.” He rubs his forehead and Pete misses his glasses a little. Used to be he’d adjust them when he was frustrated or thinking. 

Pete nods and sighs, letting the silence settle over them again. It’s soothing like Ashlee’s commiserating phone calls and Dr. Morgan’s rationalities hadn’t been. 

“I’ve found my Dom.” Pete says after a few minutes of quiet. “It was Patrick.”

Mikey’s reply is a noncommittal noise between a question and approval. It’s encouraging and it means Mikey’s listening.

“Should be fucking great right? I’ve only been into him for like ten years. This should be the best thing ever but it just… It’s all fucked up. Jesus, I don’t even know how things got this fucked up. I was just trying to find,” he waves a hand through the air in an abortive gesture he hopes Mikey understands. “Something. I didn’t know it would end up here. I had no fucking idea but I don’t know if I’d change it. It’s, fuck,” Pete groans and rubs his face with both hands. “It’s so fucked up.”

“How were you supposed to know?”

Well, Pete thinks, that’s actually a question he hasn’t asked yet. It’s a close relative to “how could I not know” but put that way, it kind of shifts things. More like it turns everything on its side really. 

“Pete?”

“I… I know his voice.”

“You didn't have any reason to think it would be him and you had no perspective. You were blindfolded. You told me, remember? Also, you were in the middle of sex. You could tell me my mom died mid-fuck and I wouldn’t hear you. So you didn’t figure it out at first. You got it eventually. Why’s it matter?”

Recounting the fight again is getting old. Pete’s always been one to share but this is starting to hurt. Each time he has to try and understand Patrick’s reasons, he feels even more twisted. 

Mikey just listens and then heaves a little sigh. “I kind of expect you to make it difficult, but I gotta say, I’m surprised by Patrick. He’s usually smarter than this.”

Pete blinks. “Did you just call me stupid?”

“Not this time.”

“You’re a real friend Mikey Way.”

Mikey gives him a look. It’s not that distinguishable from all his other looks, except for how it’s completely different. “Look, Pete, you’re in love with him and you’re lucky enough to have found out that he’s in love with you too. Congratulations. You’ve got everything you ever wanted. So all this extemporaneous bullshit’s just that - bullshit. Cut through it and be happy already.” Mikey quirks an eyebrow. “Or as happy as you let yourself be, at least. 

Pete tilts his head to the side and rests it on Mikey’s bony shoulder. That, he thinks, is what his therapist has been trying to make him get to on his own, he’s pretty sure. It’s fairly simple math, Pete plus Patrick equals right. It’s always been his baseline equation. There’s just sex and bondage to factor in now. Put like that, it’s a lot less confusing and scary that it was about ten minutes ago. “Okay.”

“Okay. Good.” Mikey agrees. “Settled then.”

“I don’t know how to get things to where they should be. You’re all loved up and happy. How do you do that?”

“There wasn’t a lot of subterfuge with me and Alicia. I followed her around, we dated, I proposed, we got married, the end.” Mikey says, and Pete doesn’t point out how Mikey’s leaving out the part where he had a breakdown and nearly killed himself. It’s probably not relevant. “I’m kind of the wrong guy to ask for advice on the how.”

“So I should ask Patrick to marry me. You know Prop 8’s still standing right?”

“No, it’s not- Pete, I’m, like, quiet you know? I like the homey shit. What worked for me isn’t going to necessarily work for you because you’re a grand gesture guy. It’s what you do. So fucking, find the right gestures. It’s Patrick. If you don’t know him, no one does. What’s he need you to do to make him hear you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“But you’ve got somewhere to start now right?” Mikey asks and Pete nods against his shoulder. That seems to be enough for Mikey, because he sinks down on the windshield and then chuckles a little. “So, I think your boyfriend fucked my wife back in the day.”

The word boyfriend doesn’t feel quite right. Ignoring the fact that for them to be boyfriends Patrick would have to acknowledge him as something beyond a particularly talented sub and sometime best friend, it doesn’t feel like enough. It makes Pete want to go looking for the word that is right for what they could be. 

Later though. After he figures out how to get Patrick to listen. And of course, once he gets done really processing the image of Alicia Way and Patrick doing… he’s not sure what. But they’re both naked in his head all of a sudden. “Did she say that? Patrick wouldn’t give any specifics.” 

“Not in so many words but something went down between them. She said something about him tying her up? I don’t know. She got a little cagey about it, like she was outing him just telling me that much. Also I think she thought I’d be mad or something.” 

Pete tilts his head back in time to see Mikey rolling his eyes at the idea of getting angry over something that happened more than a year before he started dating her. He’s kind of curious though, and speculating is more fun that dwelling on his problems. Something in a shitty hotel or maybe in one of the vans, Patrick still new to the commanding voice and issuing orders. 

The thought makes the back of Pete’s neck heat up and he lifts his head off Mikey’s shoulder. There’s possibly a moral issue here. “It’s wrong that I find that a little hot right?”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Mikey mutters. “I think it’s kind of hot, too.”

Pete laughs. “How is this my life?’

“I have no fucking idea. You figure that out, let me know.”

~*~*~

 

Turns out gestures are a lot harder to do, grand or tiny, if you can’t get a fucking hold of whoever you’re gesturing at. Pete gets nothing but voice mail when he calls Patrick, and he’s sent probably a million emails into dead ether. He’s still answering his texts but Pete’s only got so much poetry where texts are concerned. So, okay, something more tangible is clearly called for.

Pete combs through the free form rambling he’s been writing into emails, in his journals, and on take out menus for the last four months. He’s been writing a lot since this whole thing started. Pete goes back to old lyrics he wrote when he was twenty-two and twenty-three, and trying not jump Patrick in the back of the van and, well, there’s a lot. He spends hours combing through them, trying to find the ones that make sense, that go together to say what he can’t seem to get across out loud. He pieces them together into the closest facsimile of an actual love letter he’s ever written. Well. Three.

They’re kind of ridiculous, one page each, front and back, hand written on pages he tore from his favorite journal. There’s a weird mix of high school, “Do you like me check yes or no” and eighteenth century romance novel about the whole thing but it’s in the spirit of high school that he delivers them himself. Well high school and the vain hope that when he knocks, Patrick will open the door.

He doesn’t have a key to Patrick’s house after the last time Pete set up a “surprise” for him (which isn’t fair because the carpet came clean eventually) but he’s got the code to get in the gate around neighborhood. That’s more than good enough because Patrick’s house is kind of old school for LA. The door’s got one of those letterbox flaps that open inward to the main house instead of a regular mailbox on the curb. Patrick complains about it whenever Pete comments on it. It gets mail all over the floor; packages are too large to go through; it’s a creepy crack for stalkers to look through, he usually finishes with and gives Pete a Look. 

Pete doesn’t look the first two days when he drops off the letters. He just drops them through, then knocks on the door. He goes at different times both days, early afternoon and then around eight at night, and knocks every two minutes for a half hour before he heads home. 

The flap is covered in silver duct tape on day three. He gets there super early, like nine in the morning, because he knew Patrick would be home. His car’s parked in the driveway and everything. And his letterbox is taped closed.

Pete stares at it for a long moment, letter heavy in his pocket. It’s a metaphor he doesn’t want to think about, and tries not to feel fucking gutted. He’s never let that stop him before, so he rips off the tape and pushes on the flap only to find it stuck closed which means that Patrick had to care enough to tape it shut from the inside too.

“Right,” Pete says, staring at the offending flap. Then he bangs on the door with his fist until he’s sure that Patrick must’ve heard and come to the door. He’s heard him this time and Pete knows it. “I’m not going away, Patrick,” he yells through the door. “You can’t block me out with a little fucking duct tape.”

“You promised me space Pete,” Patrick calls back, not opening the door. “This is not space.”

“You’ve had space. Now is the time for you to get over your space and come back into mine.”

“You’re not playing fair here.”

“Come on. Do I ever?” There’s a long silence and Pete drops his forehead against the door. “So why do you think I’d start now when it really matters?”

More silence, then, “Jesus, just, don’t do anything that will get either of us arrested.”

“I make no promises.”

There’s a thumping sound that Pete recognizes as the sound of a Patrick-head hitting unforgiving wall. It makes him grin a little.

“Do you want your third letter?”

“I haven’t read the other two.”

“Well then take it anyway. You can not-read all three of them together.” Patrick sighs so loud that Pete feels it in his bones. 

And then he hears two locks click and Patrick opens the door. He looks tired in an old 504 Plan shirt and ancient jeans that are so old Pete remembers him wearing them on their first Warped tour. Of course, tired doesn’t detract from how good he looks and Pete leans forward and presses a fast, dry kiss to his lips, pressing the letter into his hand.

Patrick melts into it for a half a second, his fist curling around the letter. Then he pulls away. “Pete.”

“You should read it. It’ll save you a lot of time.” Then Pete grins. “Or, you know, don’t. I haven’t stalked someone in ages. I miss it, to be honest. It’s kind of hot.” He leans forward and braces himself on the door grinning at Patrick, “I look forward to it.”

Patrick meets his eyes, anger twisting his mouth into a tight frown. Hey, it’s a reaction. Pete’ll take it. “You think this is funny?”

“Not really. I’d rather we skip the part where you’re a stupid, stubborn asshole and go straight to the having awesome sex then watching TV on my couch part. But you know, whatever. I’m adaptable.”

Patrick smiles at him, just the smallest bit; the expression exasperated and familiar. “I’m serious about the getting arrested thing.”

“And I’m serious when I say I’ll take it under advisement. Patrick, just let me in and let’s talk about this.” He hangs from the door frame. “You remember conversations, don’t you, Trick? We used to be pretty good at them.”

“You said you wouldn’t push,” Patrick protests, sounding injured but Pete doesn’t flinch. The sad eyes are not going to work this time. Not about this. He’s made that wound himself. Pete’s trying to do the healing here.

“No I didn’t. I said I’d give you space. We’ve had space. Now I’m going to be pushing and pulling and probably some other verbs I haven’t considered yet. I love you, Patrick; scary, stupid, big, messy, seriously in love with you.” He lets go of the doorjamb with one hand to point at Patrick. “And you’re going to believe me if it kills you.”

“You mean kills you.” Patrick corrects. Pete just grins at him. “Pete?”

“I love you,” he chirps, pushing off the wall. “You’ll see me around.”

Revisions take time, not much, but some. He’s used to destructive attention seeking tactics – smoke bombs, graffiti, and other acts of small-scale terrorism. Revamping that for the best romantic effect is a little tricky. 

Tagging Patrick’s car, like a high school senior six weeks before graduation? Probably not his best idea. It’s deeply satisfying though. He sets up a challenge on Twitter for LA followers to tweet pictures of Patrick’s car when they spot him, and Pete gets to follow his progress around the city, grinning at camera phone pictures of PW ♥ PS written in soap on his back windshield. 

And hey, he’s got friends who just happen to be in-house musicians at the studio where Patrick’s been working on mixing his solo masters for the show. Just because they called (after he texted them asking them to let him know when Patrick was going to be there) and suggested he come hang out at the same time as Patrick’s in is not his fault. Nope. Total coincidence. Patrick doesn’t believe that but it’s a free country and he can’t exactly kick Pete off a couch he’s sitting quietly having a beer on, now can he? 

“You can’t be here,” Patrick groans, tugging his hat, a black newsboy cap Pete doesn’t recognize, lower on his forehead when he spots Pete stretched over the leather sofa at the back of the room with the mixing board.

“Sure I can. Free country, public building. I can be anywhere I want.”

“Come on, Pete.”

“Patrick,” Pete replies, beaming. “You come on, I miss hanging out. And I can’t go to your first show,” and oh is Pete still annoyed about that. He may be in full-on stalking mode but he’s not a thunder-stealer. “So, I want to hear what you’ve been working on. Come on, let me tell you what a genius you are before you go.” 

“Are you planning on getting destructive?” Patrick asks, wary and resigned. “I need to know so I can start making back-ups and maybe book some extra time before I leave for Texas.”

“Nope. I’ll be a good boy,” Pete says, stressing the last two words, practically purring them. It’s the lowest of low blows and even Pete knows it’s not fair. 

Patrick flushes bright red though, so he doesn’t care. Pete doesn’t say anything else. He just sits quietly on the couch and wonders if he turns that color when he’s tying Pete down. He makes a mental note to find out when this is all done. He wants to know if he blushes or if he’s deep enough in a scene that he’s beyond embarrassment.

He wonders if Patrick’s eyes go all dark like they used to be when Pete would catch him jerking off in the back of the van, or if he saves that for when there’s a hand on his dick. Or a mouth. 

“Is there room for me under that table?” Pete asks. Patrick chokes and Pete feels like he’s just took Patrick’s queen in a game of innuendo Chess. “We’re both pretty small. I bet I could fit. I miss how you taste, Patrick.” 

“I don’t think so,” Patrick grits out, just a little breathless. 

“I do. You know you’re the only person I’ve ever really liked blowing? You just fit in my mouth. It’s crazy. But then, you just fit me in general.”

“I’m trying to work here,” Patrick says, not turning around. That’s okay because the back of his neck is a really nice shade of pink. Pete wants to get up and lick it. Only it’s Patrick, who has never ever been afraid to shove him away or kick his ass so he doesn’t. Yet.

“I’m just thinking about how I’d do it this time. You know, since you wouldn’t be able to just fuck my mouth and come on my face like last time. I’d have to hold your hips down so you didn’t come out of the chair and gag me.” Pete lets out a small sigh and shifts on the couch, half out of necessity and half just to give Patrick some sound effects. “You can still come on my face if you want to though. Turns out I kind of like that.”

Patrick makes a strangled, gurgling noise. His head drops and Pete can hear him breathing, short ragged pants, from across the room. 

“It makes me feel like I’m yours. I love that, Patrick. I love being yours, your friend, your lover, your words, yours. Just let me be yours, already. We can be fucking legendary together.”

“You make us sound like one of your superheroes.”

“We’re better than superheroes. We’re real. We can make something real if you’d just stop it.”

“You just want me to own you,” Patrick says, sounding a little deadened. “You don’t want-“

Pete gets up and turns the chair Patrick’s sitting in so that he has to look at him. “Of course I want you to own me. You already fucking do. You’ve owned me since you took my words and put your music behind them and made them into something alive. You’ve owned me since we were stupid fucking kids in my mom’s basement. Taking me doesn’t do anything new. It just finishes what we started.”

Patrick says nothing. He just stares up with eyes that Pete wants to fall into. He’s always thought he could lose himself in them, he’s just never allowed himself to before. He wants to now. He’s earned it after years of trying to do the right thing with Patrick.

“I need to finish this,” Patrick says, gesturing at his work.

“I need you to love me back.”

Patrick laughs and shakes his head. “I do love you. I love you so much it’s fucking up my life.”

“Love me so much that it fixes it,” Pete says before he gives into his impulse and crawls into Patrick’s lap. It’s a precarious position, awkward on the chair’s hinge.

He can bend down and kiss Patrick like this, slow and deep, asking and insisting. It makes Patrick put his hands on his back to keep him from falling and it makes Pete smile into the kiss, his teeth tugging gently on Patrick’s lower lip. He knew Patrick wouldn’t let him fall. 

Of course, that doesn’t mean the chair itself is as forgiving as Pete presses forward. He braces his hand on the back of the chair above Patrick’s head, looking for leverage to get deeper. The wheels and hinge whine, squeak a little, and then the whole fucking thing topples over backwards. Patrick squawks and Pete curses as they crash to the ground. 

Patrick scrambles to his feet first, rubbing his back and stomach. His eyes flash with anger and he jerks his hand at the door. “I want you to get out.”

“Patrick come on-“

“Work, Pete,” Patrick snarls. “This is my work. I don’t have the fall backs you do and I don’t have the time to deal with your bullshit so get the hell out.”

Pete is going to have bruises in weird places, and not the good kind that comes from a solid blow delivered to bare skin. He doesn’t move though. “This isn’t over.”

Patrick doesn’t say anything but it’s clear that, for today, it is. Pete lets out a breath and hopefully some of his frustration then nods. “I love you.”

“So you said.”

“So I’m going to keep saying until you hear me. And after, too. I like saying it. It sounds good. I love you, Patrick. See? Practically music.”

He doesn’t give Patrick a chance to argue. He knows how to make an exit and that’s about as good as it gets. Besides, he needs to come up with something for the next round. 

Skywriting doesn’t accomplish much but Ashlee tweets the idea at him and Pete can’t resist. He times it so that Patrick’s plane taking off for Texas and the message line up almost perfectly. It gets Patrick to call him, though, yelling and cursing a blue streak about lines. Pete listens, grinning.

“I’m pretty sure you’re breaking FFA regulations with this phone call.”

“You’re a fucking psychotic bastard. Skywriting. Fucking skywriting Pete. The whole fucking county can see that. It’s practically visible from fucking space.”

“I love you too. Fly safe,” Pete says, hanging up before he cracks up at the new string of swearing.

He has to work long distance from LA while Patrick’s in Austin. He calls in a dozen favors, and manipulates the riders, and gets the whole place flooded with Twinkies and jerky and flan because he’s oddly literal. Pete remembers the weirdest shit, but he can’t forget the way it had felt to be curled up in his bed with Patrick, soothed and safe. 

For his valiant efforts Pete gets an angry text consisting of the words _i hate u_. Pete counters with _i <3u_. 

Pete’s over it before Patrick gets back to California. He doesn’t want to play games anymore. He just fucking wants to be with Patrick. 

The kissing almost worked. Pete keeps coming back to that. If the stupid chair hadn’t given out on him, he’s pretty sure that he could’ve gotten through to Patrick that way because that’s the problem. Patrick’s managed to convince himself that Pete doesn’t want all of him, but that’s exactly what he wants. _All_ of Patrick, the steel, black leather coated parts, the prickly uncomfortable real life parts, the smooth sexy parts, and the squishy, mundane, friend ones. 

He has to get through to him, once and for all – no interruptions, no excuses. To do that, Pete just has to get in the door.

So Pete goes with an old standby. Hey, if it works for John Cusack, it’s pretty much always a keeper. Only Patrick’s not a Pete Gabriel guy so Pete puts together his own Lloyd Dobbler mix for maximum efficiency and he uses the jacked up speakers in his car instead of a boombox. 

He sits in the car, thinking about how he’s going to proceed when Patrick comes out. He gets through Ain’t Too Proud to Beg, Short People, Kissing Old Friends and halfway through Kiss at earsplitting volume before he gets results. Well, results beyond two of Patrick’s neighbors threatening to call the cops. Prince is crooning about knowing how to undress himself when Patrick slams out of his house and into the driveway, spitting mad. 

“You can’t keep doing this shit, Pete,” he shouts over the music. “You have to take no for an answer some time.”

“No I fucking don’t!” Pete yells back. “I can keep trying forever.”

Patrick rubs his face with his hands, pushing his glasses up a little. It’s so late he’s not wearing a hat. “My neighbors are going to call the fucking police.”

“Then let me in so we can talk.”

“There isn’t anything else to talk about.”

“Yes there is. Let me in, goddamnit, for ten fucking minutes.”

Patrick’s eyes narrow. “Ten.”

“Ten.”

“Turn that off.”

Pete takes the keys out of the ignition, locks the car, and pockets them. Then he follows Patrick back into his house. The door clicks shut behind him and they stand in the door way, staring at each other until Patrick waves a hand at him. “So. Talk.”

“You going to actually listen?” Pete asks. “Because my ten minutes don’t start until you’re really listening.”

Patrick folds his arm and tries to look indignant. He’s not really successful and Pete can tell he’s gotten to him. “Okay, Pete. I’m listening.”

“I like it when you hurt me.”

“Pete-“

Pete cuts him off. “No. No talking yet. I’m talking. You’re listening. You agreed.” 

Patrick nods and droops a little more. Pete takes a deep breath and continues. 

“Okay. So, that’s not news. I mean, you saw. You know what you can do to me. I fucking love that. And I want it. I want it so fucking much, I’m not even going to pretend I don’t. If you told me to, I’d go to my knees for you right now, no questions, no conditions. I want to bleed for you. Like you said, I want you to own me.”

“You can’t do that,” Patrick says in a low voice. “Pete, we can’t be that.”

“See, that’s the thing,” Pete replies, shaking his head. “I’ve been thinking about us a lot lately and I don’t get why not because it’s not the only thing I want. I want you to play video games with me until we both get distracted and wander off. I want to talk to you and drag you away from Garage Band when you forget there are other things in the world. I want you to yell at me when I’m an asshole. I want you around, all the time, like we used to be. You’re my best friend, Patrick, but we can be more.”

“You seriously expect me to believe this? Pete, you didn’t think twice about me until you found out I had you tied up and begging. I know you.” Patrick says, using anger to push himself back up. “You find something you like you’ll do whatever it takes to get more, like you think I’m some sort of bondage vending machine or something.”

Pete laughs, because oh. Fucking duh. Once he pulls his brain back from the image of a vending machine full of bondage toys and tools he can put two and two together and get four instead of fifteen. He grins and practically stalks into Patrick’s personal space bubble. This option has been on his list, he just hadn’t thought it’d be the one that would work.

“You think I don’t want you, just like this?” He grabs Patrick’s hand and presses it to the fly of his pants. He’s been hard since Patrick stalked outside, tiny and angry and on fire. Patrick’s touch only makes it better. “Go on, double check. I promise I’ll like it.”

Patrick’s hand twitches against his zipper, Pete would bet involuntarily. It’s not enough to really do anything but it make’s Patrick’s eyes get wide and dark again, like they did in the studio. “Fuck, Pete.”

“Exactly,” Pete growls, grabbing the front of Patrick’s shirt and holding him still so that he can take a kiss. There’s no asking involved, he just fucks into Patrick’s mouth his tongue and shoves backwards until they hit a wall. Patrick groans on impact and Pete swallows it, pushing closer. 

When they break apart panting, Pete doesn’t give him a chance to think. He lets go of Patrick’s shirt and goes for the waist band of his pants. He defeats the zipper and gets his hand around Patrick’s cock a heartbeat later. Patrick’s breath catches in a gasp and fuck, he is so pretty like this, Pete almost wants to pause and just stare. 

Later though. He’s going to stare once he’s established that there is in fact going to be a later. He’s got shit to do right now. 

“You think I need you to top me all the time?” Pete murmurs, breathing hot on Patrick’s ear as he works his fist. “Patrick, since you were jailbait I’ve thought of fucking you over every flat surface in existence and, like, three that only exist in fiction.” He bites his earlobe gently for emphasis. “In the captain’s chair of the Millennium Falcon’s a big one on the fiction list. Oh, fuck, and on the tables in the Great Hall at Hogwarts? That’s on the list too. ”

“Pete,” Patrick pants, his hips bucking up into Pete’s fist. He likes this. It’s easy. It’s how Pete’s used to fucking someone. It lacks the soul-deep satisfaction of letting Patrick take control, use him and turn him out. But it’s still good. It’s different because it’s Patrick, but this he knows how to do and oh yeah, he loves to. 

“I’ve thought about you fucking me too,” Pete murmurs, slowing down his strokes so that Patrick doesn’t come just yet. “You. Here on your floor. Or on your couch, if I don’t want to try and get you to your bed. On that old sofa in my basement back in Chicago. In the lounge on a tour bus. Over the mixing board in the studio. Fuck, Patrick, I’ve thought about having you so many ways.”

“Me.” He looks like he got hit over the head with a two-by-four, pupils blown and his face going slack for a moment in what Pete thinks is probably shock. 

“Yes, idiot, you.” Pete laughs against his neck, rewarding him with a twist of his wrist that makes Patrick buck. “So, while I was playing you that playlist of awesome which you didn’t fully appreciate, I made a decision. It’s mine. You didn’t give me an order or an instruction and you don’t even have to speak okay? I love you, Patrick, you, and we’re going to fuck now.”

“Don’t,” Patrick chokes out, “Don’t I get a say in this?”

“No,” Pete snarls, attacking Patrick’s shirt as best he can with one hand wrapped tightly around his cock. “I’m in charge right now. You get to be the boss of me again when you stop making stupid fucking decisions that make us both miserable.”

“So you’re going to fuck me into believing you?” Patrick retorts. His voice is all breathy and thin so it lacks punch.

“That’s the plan, only you’re going to fuck me. Well. You’re going to lie back while I ride you.” It’s a ‘have your cake and eat it too’ situation, Pete feels. He gets to prove a point about how fucking wrong Patrick’s been about the whole thing and have him inside him at the same time. It’s a win all the way around.

“Jesus Christ.”

“No, Pete Wentz.”

Patrick laughs despite himself and Pete knows he’s won. Patrick goes easy after that, letting Pete tug him off the wall and push him down the hall towards the bedroom. 

It’s been ages since he was last in Patrick’s bedroom but it’s basically the same – bed against one wall taking up a third of the room, comfortable and simple, dressers lining the other and a small desk in a corner, dwarfed by huge speakers with Patrick’s Mac sitting on top. There’s a couple guitars that Pete doesn’t recognize for them to trip over as they fumble to the bed, but none of it matters when Pete pushes Patrick so hard onto the mattress that he bounces a little.

“Lube and condoms,” Pete says, yanking his shirt over his head and climbing on the bed at the same time. He manages to straddle Patrick’s hips and get most of his clothes off without toppling over, but it’s a near thing. “Where are they?”

“What makes you think I’ve got any?”

Pete bites Patrick’s shoulder hard through the fabric of his shirt. Patrick yelps and Pete lifts his head. “I know you have some because every man over the age of fourteen has at least one somewhere.” 

“Cocky.”

“Sure,” he counters, digging his thumb into the spot where he just bit, making Patrick hiss. Pete lowers his face to Patrick’s so close that his lips brush Patrick’s chin as he says, “Now tell me where they are so I can have your dick inside me already.”

Patrick’s hand shoots out, index finger pointing at the nightstand like the hunting dog from Looney Tunes . “Bottom drawer.”

“And I’m the difficult one,” Pete mutters, nipping Patrick’s chin. “If I go grab it are you gonna run?”

Pete pulls back so he can see Patrick’s face. He can usually tell if Patrick’s lying, so long as he can see his eyes. Pete’s pretty sure that’s how this whole mess got as complicated as it did. With that blindfold on, he hadn’t been able to see Patrick’s eyes. He looks at him now, blue eyes going a little green in the light as Pete plucks at the buttons on Patrick’s shirt. “Trick?”

Patrick meets his gaze for real and Pete can see something settle in them. He doesn’t know what but it makes Pete believe him when he says, “I’m not running.”

“Promise?”

Patrick swallows and this close, Pete can hear his throat click. “Yeah. Yes, Pete, I promise.”

“Get out of your pants,” Pete says, kissing Patrick one more time before scrambling to the night stand. Fucking KY with a plastic pop-open cap and a couple of free-floating Trojans. Score. 

He rips the condom packet open while his fingers are still clean. It’s been awhile since he’s put a condom on anyone but himself but he remembers how and hey, Patrick’s naked when he comes back to him. 

He’s seen Patrick’s cock before, of course, in a touring/sharing an apartment sort of capacity. And he’s had Patrick in his mouth, warm and pulsing. But he’s never seen it hard, held it thick and heavy in his hand. But now he can see and touch and the sooner he gets Patrick’s cock covered, the sooner he can ride it. And he really, really wants to ride. It’s like he’s been standing in the longest line for the best rollercoaster of all time, like the Batman ride at Six Flags. 

“I’m the fucking Batman ride?” Patrick demands through gritted teeth as Pete rolls the condom down over him. 

Pete laughs, popping open the lube, pouring what is probably an excessive amount into his palm. He hadn’t realized he’d said that out loud. “You totally beat the Batman ride,” Pete says, stroking Patrick’s condom covered cock. 

The sound that Patrick makes as he does so is a little stuttered and a lot guttural. Pete likes it. He wants to find out what other noises Patrick’s going to make and soon. He’s not going for grace or style here, just speed and raw fucking want because he needs Patrick to see how badly Pete wants him. He needs Patrick to get it.

Pete plants a knee on either side of Patrick’s hips, hovering over him. “I want you so fucking much, Patrick,” he says. He’s naked and hard and he just wants Patrick to understand. And he’s a visual learner himself so he goes with a demonstration, pushing two fingers from his lube-covered hand inside himself. 

That gets him a gurgled “Oh my God Pete” which is kind of awesome. He plants the palm of his free hand on Patrick’s chest to brace himself as he works himself open and for a second there, Patrick actually stops breathing. He can feel it under his hand but he has to be sure.

“See?” he asks, fingerfucking himself faster than he does when he’s alone. “Fucking dying to have you in me. You, Patrick. Want you.” 

Patrick says nothing. He stares at Pete, eyes huge and dark as he fucks himself rougher than he normally would, but fuck it. Three weeks ago he took Patrick’s entire fist. He doesn’t need all that much to take his cock. 

As soon as he’s sure he’s got enough lube inside and out, he pulls his fingers free and wraps them around Patrick’s cock. He holds Patrick steady with one hand, balances on his chest with the other and sinks down onto him, slower than he’d like until he can’t take Patrick any deeper.

Pete freezes, takes a deep breath and just lets himself feel. It’s less than Patrick’s hand but its better in some ways. It hits different places. He’s hot and solid and every time Patrick’s hips twitch beneath him just the slightest bit, it hits a new spot. 

Pete plants his other hand on Patrick’s chest beside the first and sighs. “Knew it,” he says, a little dreamy. “Knew you’d feel fucking perfect Patrick. I fucking knew it.”

Patrick reaches out finally and touches him back. His fingertips hit Pete’s collarbone where the thorns cross it and drag down his chest, following the ink of the tattoo. His touch and expression are almost reverent, like he can’t believe Pete’s real. 

It’s not what Pete was expecting, at all. It’s more than he’d been hoping for and he rocks forward involuntarily. The movement draws matching moans out of both their throats and Pete puts his weight on his knees so he can fuck himself back onto Patrick properly. 

He doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing. He’s good with theory. Ashlee used to ride him like this. It’s just, he’s never really done it himself. Every time Mikey fucked him he was either on his back, or facing away from him, on his stomach or knees in a bed or against a wall.

The mechanics of this are completely different. He kind of likes that he gets to figure this out with Patrick. His other hand grip’s Pete’s hip, steadying him as he moves slowly, trying to find his balance. His thighs burn like they haven’t since he quit playing soccer as he searches for the right rhythm. It takes him forever to find it but when he does, a medium tempo roll of his hips and legs, it’s a goddamn revelation. Every down thrust hits his prostate and every upward push drags just right. 

A litany of Patrick’s name pours out of his mouth as Patrick rocks up to meet him on every slide. He doesn’t realize he’s asking something until Patrick’s hand wraps around his cock. But clearly he was because his whole fucking world crystallizes when Patrick does, sparking down Pete’s spine.

He leans forward because he has to kiss Patrick for this. Nothing else is a sufficient, thank you. Patrick grabs the back of his neck and pushes up into the kiss, licking past Pete’s teeth, searching and caressing. It’s amazing, Patrick inside him and kissing him and pulling him close all at once. 

Pete groans in pleasure and then in frustration. Bent like this, the angle’s all fucked up and Patrick’s not going deep enough. That needs to be fixed. Right fucking now. 

Pete breaks away gasping and leans back. “Sit up.”

Patrick looks at him with reddened lips and heavy-lidded eyes. “What?”

“Up,” Pete grunts. He tugs at Patrick’s shoulders as best he can. His fingers and Patrick’s skin are both slippery. But Patrick gets the message. With a collaboration of effort, Patrick manages to get upright, his knees bent for balance with Pete draped over his lap with only the briefest withdrawal.

He buries his face in Patrick’s neck and sighs as he sinks back onto Patrick’s cock. It’s just as good as the first time only he’s used to it now so it’s fast and hard on top of all the basic deliciousness. Also, now he has Patrick’s thighs to brace his back against, and can use his shoulders for leverage. He gets his rhythm faster than before and steadier. Patrick doesn’t have to reach as far to fist Pete’s cock. “Better,” Pete gasps as Patrick leans back a little, bracing himself with one hand so he can fuck up into Pete’s down slides. “Better, better, fuck, yeah.” 

Then he grips the hair at the back of Patrick’s head and pulls his mouth to Pete’s because that was the whole point. Kissing. He needs to be kissing Patrick now. He’s close and he doesn’t want to come if he can’t do it while Patrick is kissing him. 

Patrick catches his lower lip in his teeth, his right hand stroking his cock in a fast counter point to Pete’s desperate thrusts. It hurts just a little but it’s the extra sensation he needs and he’s coming, gasping into Patrick mouth and pulling on his hair, probably too hard if the sharp noise he makes is any indication. 

It’s hard to care when his world’s reduced to PatrickPatrickPatrick. He’s all Pete can taste and smell and touch and hear. Coming feels like every cell in his body’s exploded and finally. Finally he’s found what he was looking for, and managed to get a hold of it and now he gets to ride blinding pleasure all the way into oblivion. 

Pete loses a little time but oblivion doesn’t really last that long because Patrick’s still hard inside him. And Pete’s still impaled on him, panting and too sensitive. He’s good with not stopping though. He’s fine with that because even though every little rocking thrust makes Pete’s whole body shudder, he’s come back enough that he can watch Patrick.

It’s going to become a thing – watching Patrick. It always kind of was, on stage, around the studio, wandering across parks and parking lots and up and down hallways and streets. But this is up close, inches from Patrick’s face as he pants and squeezes his eyes shut, and bites down on his lower lip making the skin look white around them. 

Pete wants to be responsible for his orgasm. His thighs are screaming and every slide down Patrick’s cock makes him shudder like he’s being shocked with one of those violet wand things from the inside. 

He ducks his head down and nuzzles the side of Patrick’s nose. Patrick pushes back, his mouth searching blind for Pete’s but he doesn’t let him reach. He’s too busy. 

“Come in me, Trick,” he murmurs, grinding down hard and making Patrick grab his hips and jackknife up to meet him. “Love you. Wanna feel it.”

Patrick groans his name and he jerks beneath Pete, moaning. He’s close. He’s so close, Pete can practically taste it. He darts his tongue out, licking at the sweat on Patrick’s upper lip, salty and Patrick-favored. He does as best he can to squeeze Patrick inside him and chants, “Wanna feel you, Patrick, Patrick, come for me please.” 

Something in that mix works because a breath later, Patrick’s coming, slamming up into him so hard that it almost hurts. His head falls back like something’s been cut, and the muscles in his throat twitch, and Pete would taste them if it didn’t mean he’d have to stop watching the way Patrick’s face twists with pleasure. And he’s not giving that up. Next time though, he’s going to feel Patrick’s neck work with his lips.

Then it’s like Patrick’s muscles have been switched off and he flops backwards onto the bed. Pete isn’t ready to let go yet so he goes down with him, draping himself over Patrick’s chest mindless of the mess. It takes a little maneuvering and fidgeting to get comfortable but Pete manages without releasing his hold.

“You’re smothering me.”

Pete huffs into Patrick skin. He smells like sweat and Patrick. Pete licks it just because he can and Patrick doesn’t even really bat him away. “You’ll probably survive.”

“If you kill me then you can’t-“ Patrick trails off and Pete can hear the confused frown in his voice. “I don’t know exactly what the next step in your plan was but I can’t do it if I’m dead.”

“Next step is throwing away the condom. Step after that’s a shower. Step after that is getting back in bed only under the covers this time. Go back to step one and start over with extra steps for taking care of Hemmy and you know. Work.”

Patrick groans like lifting his head is a supreme effort of will but he blinks down at him. “That was your master plan?”

“This was the end of the master plan. If this didn’t work I was going to somehow manufacture a shrink ray and put an even tinier you in a box until you decided to listen.” Pete rubs his thumb over the place where Patrick’s neck and shoulder met. “You’re listening now though right?”

Patrick lets out a little sigh that Pete more feels than sees but tugs him a little closer. “Yeah I am.”

“I want this to work. Right now, that’s all I really want – you and me.” He pushes up a little so that he can see Patrick’s face. “What do you want?”

It feels like forever that Patrick is quiet. Pete gives him a hopeful smile. “That wasn’t a trick question you know.”

“I know that.”

“So, I mean, Patrick, you’re killing me here.” He tires to curl closer, finds that he can’t and drops an arm around Patrick’s chest, squeezing tighter than maybe he needs to. 

“I kind of made myself get over the idea of ever being with you.”

Okay, that isn’t the answer Pete wanted to hear at all. He holds a little tighter. “Get it back. I’ll help you look for it, just, get it back.”

“I’m working on it but it feels a little unreal still. Give me a break,” he says, reaching up and flicking Pete’s ear. “I’m trying to shift my whole fucking world view here.”

“I can help with that too. I’ve had a world view shift myself recently.” He kisses the closest piece of skin he can reach, it’s the curve of Patrick’s shoulder. “If you want anyway.”

Patrick doesn’t answer right away. Pete can wait this time. Really he can. It means that Patrick’s thinking, trying to figure himself out and this is big. Momentous, even.

He forces himself to be patient until Patrick pulls Pete’s arm from around his stomach so that he can take Pete’s hand. Pete doesn’t bother to hide the grin that commandeers his face as Patrick laces their fingers together and then sits up. “Yeah. I guess we can stick to your master plan.”

“My master plan involves us being a couple,” Pete warns.

“Okay, let’s do the shower part of the plan and go from there once we’re not disgusting anymore.”

Pete lets Patrick pull him off the bed and into the master bathroom. Yeah. He can totally work with this.


	7. Chapter 7

Being with Patrick is shockingly easy considering how much work it took to get there. The first few weeks Pete spends fighting the residual resistance Patrick is clinging to. It's like he's prying Patrick’s fingers free of the death grip he’s got on that old fear. Pete doesn’t know exactly what he did or Patrick did that made it shift but he knows the moment changes. 

He’s standing in Patrick’s kitchen, debating the pros and cons of ordering Chinese to just putting the freezer pizza he found in Patrick’s freezer in the oven and taking the risk. He hasn’t made a decision when Patrick’s arms slid around his waist from behind and his cheek presses against Pete’s back. 

Pete has to take a couple of deep breaths, bracing himself for Patrick to tell him that they can’t/won’t work, and turns around to get kissed into the fridge instead. When they break for air, Patrick is grinning at him and his hair is sticking up where Pete’s fingers have dragged through them. There’s a different set to his shoulders, his mouth and stand pressed together, smiling, for what feels like forever. He refers to Pete as his boyfriend in a phone call to his mom two hours later. Pete almost knocks over his mushu pork as he leaps up to do a victory lap around the living room because, well, he earned it.

Once they get to that point though, it’s pretty much like it was before they went on hiatus, only now they fuck and when they’re hanging out, doing stupid boring shit like watching TV together, sometimes there’s cuddling that Pete doesn’t instigate. Oh, and Pete doesn’t have to sleep alone which is a fucking huge plus on top of the world of yes that is having Patrick back in his personal space bubble all the time. 

It changes pretty much nothing as far as his friends are concerned. The only really notable incident is Ashlee singing her “I Told You So” song when after he tells her. She wrote it herself to be intentionally grating but he lets her get half way through the second verse before threatening to hang up on her. Being well laid makes him indulgent – always has.

For like a month, they’re just a couple and it’s his same old life, only better. Like, a lot fucking better. So much better that he’s kind of difficult for normal people to handle – more so than usual.

Which doesn’t explain why he starts picking fights with Patrick every time they turn around all of a sudden. It’s sort of insane. Pete’s aware of this but he can’t really stop which is what lets him know that it’s actually insane and not his typical harmless sort of crazy. 

After about the fifth fight - this one started over whether to scramble or fry some fucking eggs - Pete goes for outside help. He’s not ready to take it to Dr. Morgan yet even though he knows he should, so he picks up his phone and starts dialing. It’s a perfectly valid coping mechanism, as one of the first boundaries of their relationship Patrick put in place was that Pete was not allowed to blog, tweet, or otherwise post on the internet in any way shape or form about their relationship. It wasn’t the kind of thing Pete would normally agree to but Patrick had been taking a ten second break from blowing Pete at the time so he’d been ready to commit to anything. 

Mikey’s theory is that he has as a compulsive need to ruin things when they get too good. Gabe just hangs up on him because, “really, enough already, Pete. I’ve got a life.” Ashlee thinks it’s for the angry sex. That’s way less depressing than the more likely reality that he’s trying to sabotage what could literally be the best thing to ever happen to him. So Pete’s inclined to agree with her.

After all, the angry sex is kind of great. Angry sex breaks the arm of Patrick’s sofa and Pete’s kitchen table and sends Hemmy scurrying out of the room to hide. It leaves bruises and teeth marks and its fucking amazing. But sex with Patrick in general is fantastic so what the hell.

The hell is that he finds himself hovering around Patrick while he’s working pulling the “I’m not touching you” stunt wondering what the fuck he’s trying to achieve. It’s like six-year-old move and possibly below even his own low personal standards. It’s not until Patrick slams his laptop shut and snarls “What the fuck, Pete, do you want me to kick your ass?” that kind of clicks.

“Yeah, please,” slips out of Pete’s mouth before he realizes what he’s doing. Hell, Pete’s head is nodding without permission too. 

Patrick makes a disgusted sound, grabs his keys and storms out. His storming is less than impressive but it’d normally be cute. This time it just adds to the kind of sick feeling in the pit of Pete’s stomach. Yes wasn’t really the answer he had meant to give but it that didn’t make it any less true.

Patrick comes back half an hour later, calmer with a blue ICEE from the gas station two miles from Pete’s house that he’s unwilling to share. Pete feels guilty enough that he doesn’t feel compelled to try to steal any of it. He even lets Patrick finish most of it before Pete takes it from him. 

He makes a little bit of a show of making sure it’s sitting securely on a flat surface before he slithers into Patrick’s space. He kisses his apology into his jaw and neck because it’s really not about angry sex. He’s shooting for make-up sex here. 

“I don’t get off on being pissed at you,” Patrick says, sinking into the couch as Pete pulls back to strip off his shirt. Pete just hmms and works on Patrick’s belt, encouraging him to continue. “You do plenty of real things to get angry about so, I don’t know. We’re working so stop trying to mess us up. You’re the one who talked me into this, remember?”

Pete nods but for once he doesn’t speak. He’s got too much going on in his head and he wants to be inside Patrick. He wants this to be okay. He wants to stop whatever it is that he’s doing and get back to the business of being in love with Patrick. But since he can’t manage all of those things, he ferrets under the couch for the packets of lube and condoms he hid there a couple of weeks ago and goes for the most pressing desire, fucking into Patrick, mumbling an “I’m an idiot” and “love you” into the skin beneath his ear. 

He also manages not to ask Patrick smack his ass but it’s kind of a near thing. And he rolls them off the couch, making sure he lands on the bottom with a thump that shoots pain up his back and makes him comes so hard that his head hurts. Although Patrick might be right that he slammed his head when they hit the floor.

It’s kind of hard to ignore the BDSM elephant in the proverbial room after that. And once he knows what it is, the impulse turns into a need that sits like a physical sensation in his brain that pushes at him, just a little bit, but constantly. The fact that he could be happy with it being an all-the time is only part of the problem.

“So you’ve identified what you need.” Dr Morgan says, tapping her pen against her knuckles and watching him intently. He always regrets telling her things at moments like this. “What’s stopping you from communicating this to your partner?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Pete sputters. “You were here for the whole Patrick Pursuit Odyssey right? I didn’t hallucinate that?”

“Unless you’ve started taking something without telling me, no, you haven’t.” She narrows her eyes. They’ve talked about meds a few times but so far they’ve come down against it every time. Still, the whole self-medicating thing was on her radar thanks to his info dumps back when he was seeing her every day. “You’re not are you?”

“What? No. I just- I don’t know. I think I might have convinced myself this would go away now that Patrick and I are a couple.”

She clicks her pen twice then says, “This being your fetish.”

“I prefer kink.” Pete says, picking at a small hole in the fabric of his pants he hadn’t noticed before. He doesn’t really think he fits into the fetish category, that’s people who have to be, like, looking at shoes to get off. This is more of a bent, a preference, like liking Star Wars over Star Trek. 

At least it would be if when he dressed up like Han Solo he felt settled and turned on and mellow instead of like a general badass. Also, if he felt compelled to kneel down at Luke Skywalker’s feet and get his hair petted. So yeah. Exactly like that. He wonders if he can get Patrick the white tunic or maybe the black outfit with the glove. That kind of role play is supposedly normal, right? 

Dr Morgan clicks her pen again and clears her throat. “Your kink then. Why did you think it would go away? If you like oral, you don’t stop liking it just because you start dating someone who isn’t thrilled about it.”

Pete gapes at her, horrified. “Oral is one of the most thrilling things on planet earth. Everyone is thrilled about oral.”

“No, they’re not but I think you’re missing the point here.”

“I’m not missing the point. Do you actually treat people who don’t like getting head?” Pete asks. He can’t imagine the kind of neurosis that has to involve and it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than his issues. He’d like to stay on this topic, thanks. 

She clicks her pen five more times and sighs. “Pete,” she says, her voice calm but cut through with steel. “Try and focus for me.”

Pete does and sinks down on her couch. He doesn’t like actually thinking about his problems. Or what he wants. Or why he can’t have it. He’s not big on thinking when he could just act and figure everything out later. “I told you it makes my brain shut up right?” He tears at the hole with his thumbnail, keeping his eyes on the task rather than her face. “I can’t remember.”

“You did,” Dr. Morgan says with a little nod. Pete thinks of it as her do go on nod. 

“That’s… I don’t know, peace I guess. And it feels fucking good, it’s hot and it’s a total high but it’s peaceful too. And it’s safe, like really safe and makes me feel, don’t know, taken care of. I miss that part too.” He plucks at the loose threads with his fingernails and a little more of his skin shows through. 

“And you want those feelings to come from your partner.”

Pete tilts his head and frowns at her. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“Yet you aren’t willing to ask him for it.”

“He barely believed me the first time,” Pete points out. “Sometimes he pulls back when he’s fucking me, like he’s afraid I’m going to confuse him and his Dominant side, like they’re two separate people or something. I don’t want to fuck it up by pushing it.” Which, Pete can admit, is kind of ironic considering how much of the wrong kind of pushing he’d been doing before. He’s trying now though. That’s got to count for something.

“Pete, people’s sexualities don’t just magically change. Submission and masochism seem to be integral parts of yours and from what you’ve told me,” she stops to click her pen a couple of times and it seems to center her. “Dominance seems to be part of his. Do you really think that repressing it is going to do you any good?” She asks. It sounds rhetorical, with anyone else Pete would assume it was. But she’s almost always really asking. He kind of hates that.

Sulking is beneath him. He’s grown man and he shouldn’t do it. Yet he finds his shoulders sagging and his lower lip pushing out in a pout. “No.”

“There’s nothing wrong with what you want,” Dr Morgan says, leaning towards him with a gentle smile that reminds Pete of why he keeps coming back to her. “I hope that in the months you’ve been seeing me, you’d at least have gotten that much.”

Pete shoves his hands into his pockets because if he doesn’t, he’s going to ruin these pants. He’s been stewing in this months subconsciously and a solid week in the front of his brain for a week and he’s not exactly comfortable with saying what he wants out loud. “This isn’t your specialty though,” he hedges.

“Pete, I know you think you’re a special snowflake but you are not the only patient I’ve ever had who’s required a little research.”

“You did research?”

“Yes. Wonderful things, books and Google. Also, I have colleagues who specialize in sex therapy and have experience with power dynamics and BDSM as a way of coping with trauma. My specialty is nowhere near that interesting.” She gives him a small grin. “I somehow managed to get stuck with putting rockstars back together. But I’m not afraid to ask for help.”

That actually sounded like a pretty cool thing to get a degree in. Pete wonders idly if he’s met any of them, through layers of latex or across the dungeon at Passive Acts. It’s a weird thing to contemplate. “What did they say?”

“They said variations on the same things I’ve been telling you – that you’re an adult and as long as you continue to take care of yourself by coming to therapy and making intelligent decisions, you’re entitled to live a lifestyle that makes you happy and fulfilled. That normal is subjective and irrelevant. That what works for you works.”

“Even if it’s, you know.” He swallows around the sharp feeling in his throat and forces it out. “Something like a twenty-four/seven submission situation. Only not exactly but, like, a lot of the time. I’m not sure. I just know I don’t have it.” 

“Any lifestyle that doesn’t hurt anyone,” she says with no small hint of exasperation. Pete’s lost count of how many times she’s clicked her pen. “Pete, you known what you want. You’ve known what you wanted since you walked into my office six months ago. You’re looking to me for validation and you have it. What you do from there is your responsibility and choice.”

“And Patrick’s.”

She shakes her head and a few pieces of grey and auburn hair fall loose from the loose knot at the back of her head. “Not until you make your needs known. He can’t do anything with information he doesn’t have.”

“You keep putting this back on me,” Pete grumbles. He can stick his finger through the hole in his pants now. “I hate that.”

“Well, it’s your life.” Dr. Morgan points out, back to amused by him rather than frustrated. “Who else is going to do it?”

That doesn’t actually make it any easier for Pete to talk to Patrick about it. He thinks about it, tries a few times. But he keeps getting tangled up in the words in his head That’s not a new experience but for once, Pete’s not ready to share them with Patrick until he’s figured out what, exactly, he’s asking for. The hours he spends slinking around S&M how-to sites doesn’t help so much as it makes what he wants that much more distracting. 

He calls Sandy when he finds himself opening his Sidekick to tweet a fucking Joy Division lyric like a mopey tenth grader. That sort of emo is a line and he’s past it. Really. He is. He’s graduated to calling his friend’s girlfriend for help instead. It’s far less pathetic, or at least marginally less. She knows things. She’s tapped in and probably has sage-like wisdom on the subject.

It goes to voicemail. Twice. Pete leaves a message and gets half a verse typed into his Twitter app when John Travolta’s voice erupts out of his phone. He picks up before Olivia Newton-John can sing her part and makes a note to hack Gabe’s phone to do the same next time they’re in the same timezone. 

“Sandy,” Pete says, trying not to sound too eager. He’s met this woman maybe three times since she and Gabe picked him up off the floor. He doesn’t really know her well enough to ask, let alone to expect her to say yes. “Thanks for calling me back.”

“It’s no problem. Sorry I didn’t pick up. I screen everybody but you said you wanted to talk. I’m going to be leaving work in twenty minutes. Can you meet me downtown?”

“Now?”

“In twenty minutes.” She repeats slow and precise like he’s an idiot child, which isn’t far off lately.

“Yeah. You know the Starbucks off Sunset?” It’s fairly big and they get enough celebrity customers that Pete won’t attract much attention of he dresses down. It’s not exactly private but Pete’s been going there for years and he’s never been bothered. 

“Of course. Twenty minutes? See you then Pete.”

She’s there before he is which is kind of insane. No one in LA is on time but Sandy’s early. He spots her loitering with a whipped brown frozen frappe-something in a dark blue skirt that looks like its probably part of a suit and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just below the elbow. She looks completely different than the last time he saw her, professional and older, older than he is by at least five years, and kind of hot with her blonde hair tied back loosely against the summer heat. He waves at her, she smiles back, and that he remembers.

He returns it and steps into the line. Having more caffeine probably isn’t a great idea but he’s not ready to talk to her yet. He gets his latte without getting recognized and she’s still smiling when he finally crosses too her. The combination goes a long way ease the nerves twisting themselves into a tight, heavy knot in the pit of his stomach and he feels almost ready to maybe talk to her when they settle into a table at the back of the store. 

She stares at him across the table until he has to say something. He rubs the back of his neck and takes a deep breath. “So.”

“So,” she echoes, amusement clear in the curl of her mouth and the twinkle in her eyes.

“Uh, yeah I thought maybe you and I could talk.”

She tilts her head at that. “I’ve been dating your best friend for half a year and we’ve never talked before.”

“Yeah, that would be because my best friend’s been hiding you. He’s kind of a douche.”

“He can be,” she agrees with a smile. “But somehow I don’t think that’s why.”

“Okay,” Pete says, inclining his head to her. “Why do you think?”

“I think that maybe you’ve got an idea about who I am because of how things were the last time we met,” she says. She pauses to take a sip her drink. “That’s what you want to talk about right? Starbucks coffee’s not that great and besides Gabe, bondage is the only thing you know we have in common.”

Pete’s face heats up just a little. It’s summertime. He can’t help it. “That’s not the only thing.”

“It’s the main thing. I’ve seen you getting beaten into subspace. There’s pretty much nothing you could say that would surprise me.” she rolls her eyes. “So stop dicking around like we don’t both know what’s up, all right?” 

“Okay. I don’t know, I haven’t really talked about this with -” He waves a hand, trying to communicate his meaning without actually saying anything. He’s not sure how to get it across without coming off like an asshole.

“Anyone who isn’t in your ridiculous tight network of people who you feel compelled to tell the personal details of your life to in excruciating detail or the faceless masses of the internet?” she supplies with a small laugh. “Yeah, I can see how that would be hard. Give it a shot.”

So Pete does. It come out in pieces because he’s not quite sure what she does and doesn’t know, what’s important. When he gets to a decent stopping place he slumps down in his chair and finishes off half his drink in a few long gulps. He sets down his cup and finds Sandy staring at him across the table with her elbows planted on the table, her chin resting on the knuckles of her ringless left hand, her grey eyes fixed on him. 

He shifts in his seat under her gaze, grateful for his sunglasses. They make excellent shields. “So, what do you think?”

“I think that’s way more detail than any sane human being would ever need about your sex life,” she says, tilting her head a little so that her cheek pressed against her knuckles. “So what’s your bottom line. You have to sum up everything you’ve just babbled up in one sentence, what’s your point?”

“The point?”

“Your goal, your desire, your drive. What the fuck are you trying get?”

Boiling it down is a little bit trickier than Pete was expecting. But she’s seen him on the floor after a scene, a puddle instead of a man. It makes it oddly easy to blurt out his answer. “I’m trying to get him to take fucking ownership of me already.”

She grins at him, wide and knowing, light dancing in her eyes. “See, that I can work with.”

“You can?” Pete asks, a little stunned. He feels like he’s been saying this over and over for months and this is the first time anyone’s had that response. 

“Yep. It sounds to me like you want the declaration, the formality. I mean listen to yourself. You phrase possession of you as something your Dom already has. You said take. That’s an action, part of the role.” She turns her hand so that she can chew on the fingernail on her left pinky finger is she thinks. She stops before she bites through the nail and says, “You know if you were my sub, I’d think you wanted to be collared.”

Collared. It’s a word Pete’s seen batted around the websites but it’s not something he ever really stopped to think about it. Probably because every time he tried, he had a flash of Gabe in that stupid dog collar. But the way Sandy says it, solemn and full of meaning, makes Pete think of what it would be like if Patrick were the one sliding a collar around his throat. He swallows hard and for a second, he can almost feel the pressure, the weight of being owned as a physical presence against his neck. It makes the hair on his arms stand up and his skin prickle under the air conditioning. 

“Pete, hey,” she snaps her fingers in front of his face. “Do not go under on me right now. We’re in public and I’m not in the frame of mind to take care of you.”

Pete shakes himself, blinking a few times to pull himself out of the fantasy. He shivers a little, involuntarily and rubs his arm, trying to make the goosebumps go down. His pulse probably shouldn’t speed up at the idea of sliding into subspace in public. “Shit. Sorry. That was weird.”

“No, that’s good. You know what you’re shooting for. Now all you have to do is ask your Dom. If he loves you half as much as he seemed to last time I saw you together, it shouldn’t be a problem.” She says it with a fondness that makes Pete want to know what she saw. He knows how it felt but he can only imagine what it must have looked like from the outside – Patrick with his belt wrapped around his fist, probably sweating, his face definitely flushed pink with effort. Pete wants to see Patrick next time, to watch before he goes to that white blank place. 

Of course, if he thought Patrick were open to that in day to day conversation, Pete wouldn’t be here in the first place. He’d be with Patrick, possibly on his knees, definitely ready to obey. “There’s no right way to ask for something like that.”

“So fuck right,” Sandy says, lifting her head off her hands to free them up to make a flicking, dismissive gesture. “Don’t go looking for some sort of secret decoder ring, Pete. Just stick with what you know. Try asking him the way you would’ve have when you didn’t know who he was. You still need to be direct but he can’t mistake it for anything else that way. It’s as good a starting place as any.” 

Pete says nothing because hey, the lady has a point. It’s easy to relax now that he has a plan so he buys her another coffee because he was totally right about her having sage-like advice. He passes her over the cup and says, “So what’s up with you and Gabe? He won’t tell me shit.”

Sandy ducks her head a little and lifts her latte to her lips, an almost shy smile curling her lips up around the rim. But after she swallows, she leans forward and Pete listens, relieved to talk about something other than himself.


	8. Chapter 8

Drafting the email is a fucking flashback, the nervous tension and the feeling of uncertainty that comes with sending a message into the void. He settles on _i love all of you. i miss this. im yours, patrick. collar me. own me. take me already._ because everything else he comes up with is so thick hyperbole and metaphor that it’s barely English. 

Pete guesses it’ll take awhile to get a response out of Patrick, if it even works. After all, he has no idea if he even checks the ssc84 account anymore. So, he figures he has time to plan. When he hits send, he figures he’ll give it two, maybe three weeks and if Patrick doesn’t get it by then, he’ll have figured out how to broach the subject without digging up weeks that Pete would rather forget. 

So Pete is not expecting to find him glaring from the couch when he arrives at Patrick’s from the Clan offices. They go back and forth been houses but Patrick’s had a lot of work for his album lately so it’s been easier to home base there for now. Hemmingway’s got bowls in Patrick’s kitchen and everything. Pete likes the way it feels to come home to this – Patrick and his dog and a bed that smells like both of them and those dryer sheet things that Patrick buys – but not when Patrick’s got his _I am going to kick your ass from here to next month_ face on. 

Pete gives Patrick his best smile and crosses the room to him, dropping his laptop bag on a chair. “You look like someone just said Bowie’s a hack. Bad day?”

“I got your email, Pete,” Patrick says and okay wow. He sent it less than six hours ago so, yeah, that was fast. A rush of adrenaline floods Pete, awesome and fucking terrifying all at once. Mostly awesome, though. Pete really likes the implication that comes with the cold fact that Patrick somehow checks that account.

He plays it cool though, shooting another smile across the room. “Yeah?” It’s an amazing performance, shoulders loose, hands in his pockets. He almost believes it himself. 

Pete can see Patrick’s jaw tick from across the room. It’s not the muscle that ticks when he’s angry though, it’s the other one, the one that only acts up when he’s trying not to get genuinely upset. “Yes.”

“What’s it stand for anyway, that address?” Pete asks, flailing at something, anything, to get some of the tension out of Patrick’s face. “I always wanted to ask but there was the whole…” He waves a hand. “And then we were kind of too busy fucking and it slipped my mind.”

Patrick drags his hand down over his face and rubs his eyebrows. “The fact that you don’t know is half the fucking problem.”

“So tell me. Then I’ll know.”

“Safe, sane, consensual, Pete and the year I was born. Seriously what did you think it was?”

“Before I knew it was you I thought it might be initials, or, I don’t know,” he shrugs. “Sacramento State College, class of ’84? It could’ve been anything. That makes sense though.”

Patrick blinks at him in disbelief. “Are you- no. Of course you’re serious. Pete, do you have any idea what you’re doing?” He pushes off the couch to his feet. He looks like he wants to pace, or grab Pete and shake him. He doesn’t do either. “Do you know what you’re asking for?” That sort of question is the kind of thing that Pete would expect maintained eye contact on. Instead Patrick looks interested in his floor. “I don’t think you do.”

“Yeah, actually, I do know what I’m asking for. I stopped and thought about this before I did it, Trick.” He reaches out and tips Patrick’s chin up so that he can see Pete smiling at him. “I’m not a complete idiot.”

Patrick rolls his eyes at him but he doesn’t pull away from the touch. “Just a partial one.”

There’s not really any arguing that so Pete doesn’t bother to try. He’s got other avenues that are way more important. “You know,” Pete says moving a step closer to Patrick and pulling his hand away, “You wouldn’t have checked that email if you didn’t want this too, at least a little.”

“It automatically forwards to my main account,” Patrick snaps, folding his arms over his chest.

“Still.” He has to bite his lip for a second because huffy Patrick is one of his favorites Patricks. He doesn’t think his amusement would be appreciated right now. “Why?”

“Pete,” Patrick says and his voice is pleading. It reminds Pete of the way he sounded at the kitchen table with Ashlee, telling Pete to stop, knowing he wouldn’t. It makes a whole different kind of sense now than it did then. 

“I like it when you tell me what to do, when you tie me down and make me hurt,” Pete says, trying to keep his voice even. It’s hard though because what he wants is so close and he fucking aches for it. “I love the way you can turn me inside out and make me feel like a whole person instead of a broken toy. Fucking precious, Patrick, that’s how you make me feel. Safe. All the time but when you’re controlling me it’s on a whole other plane.”

The sound Patrick makes when he swallows is so loud it’s a little gross, and he still won’t meet Pete’s eyes. That’s good though because Pete’s not above playing dirty here. That’s a lot easier to do if Patrick isn’t looking at him all wounded and confused. 

“You said having me on my knees for you was your fantasy. Don’t you want it?” Pete licks his lips because his mouth is suddenly incredibly dry. “Because you can have it. You can have it all the time, any time.”

“You can’t offer me that,” he whispers. His words come out ragged and his eyes are wide and dark. Pete thinks he looks kind of gorgeous like this. Even if, standing barefoot in his jeans and shirt, the difference is barely noticeable; Pete can see it. He wants to look forward to seeing Patrick like this as often as possible for the rest of his life. 

“Why not? My body, my-” He waves a hand looking for the right word. He finds it and drops his arm to his side. “My will. If I want to hand it over to you, that’s the consensual part right? I’m consenting. Sanely. And there’s no one on earth I’m safer with than you. So tell me, why the fuck can’t I?”

“You can’t because it’s too big,” Patrick practically shouts. He seems to startle himself out of it and sags a little. “To me. For what I’d need from you. You can’t offer to do this, to let me fucking collar you because it’s too damn big, Pete.” He casts his eyes down to the floor again. “I can’t even think about something like that if it’s not for keeps.” 

Pete rubs his face with his hands. This jerk off fest of circular logic is getting so old. And he’s the kind of the rehash so that’s fucking saying something. “I’m sorry but I thought we established this was for keeps with the whole ‘risking a decade of friendship’ thing to be together.”

Patrick looks at his feet, at the wall, at the black screen of his TV, at the kitchen door. He looks anywhere at Pete. That’s a fucking guilty Patrick if Pete’s ever seen which, what? 

“Are you kidding me?” Pete demands. He’s shouting. He knows he is. He doesn’t care. “Still?” 

Patrick’s silence is all the answer he needs.

“Jesus, Patrick! How much more together do we need to be before you believe me? You know the only reason we haven’t moved in together is because the real estate market fucking sucks right now. So just… fucking really?”

“I... look, Pete,” Patrick begins, looking wore out and a little nervous. “What we’re talking about doing is-” 

“Fun. And deep. And special. And something we both want and really, really need,” Pete ticks them off on his fingers before Patrick can fill in with some ridiculous negative bullshit. Then he waves his open hand through the air in an all encompassing gesture. “So just...you know, collar me and get over yourself.” 

“It's not that simple.” 

“Why?”

“Because collaring is like a fucking bondage marriage that's why.” Patrick snaps, color rising in his face to go with the anger in his voice. “It's a serious commitment. I take it fucking seriously.” 

“Are you not seriously committed to me?” Pete asks, tucking his hands into his pockets, thumbs out. It’s a casual move that keeps him from clenching them into fists. 

Patrick shakes his head and takes a step forward. “Don't turn this around on me.” 

“I'm not the one being all waffly here,” Pete says. He shrugs as he speaks, keeping his hands in his pockets. It’s got a good effect. It’s totally worked for him before. It’s charming and emanates a _oh, it’s just little old me_ vibe. 

Patrick recognizes it and his frown deepens. “I’m not waffling. I'm committed.” 

“Then why wouldn't you want to collar me?” He flexes his hand and pulls it out of his pocket, loose and open in invitation. “Even my shrink says it’s okay if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

“I’m not worried about that. I’m worried because it would change things, for me.” He lifts his hand and gestures at his temple. “In my head, Pete, it means something to me, collaring. It’s got fucking weight okay?” He drops his hand, letting it fall limp against his thigh. “We can't do that, me the Master and you the sub, every day, all the time.”

“No but we could do it a lot of the time. Bordering on most.”

That gets Pete a wide-eyed stare. Patrick is genuinely stunned, Pete can tell. He all but gawks at Pete until he shakes himself back to reality. “You can't be serious.” 

Pete sighs and presses his lips together. “Yeah, I kinda am. I let you tell me what to do most of the time anyway. This is just makes your bossiness sexier.” Pete takes a deep breath and forces himself to be serious. Patrick won’t hear him if he’s not. “What part of I want to be owned by you do you not get?” he asks, willing all the earnestness he feels into his face and his words.

“The part where it’s okay that I make you my property,” Patrick says in a small voice. He hunches his shoulders in a gesture that Pete recognizes from his own fits of emotional self-abuse. It hits Pete as he looks at the curve of Patrick’s back that he’s beaten himself up over wanting this. He’s told himself it’s not okay for some reason and he hasn’t quite convinced himself otherwise yet. 

It makes Pete wonder what Patrick’s journey to this place was like, how many bumps in the road to figuring out what he wanted he had hit that Pete never knew about. He wants to though. He wants to know what made Patrick so fucking gun-shy to take what is offered. Pete’s going to find out. It’s one of many, many things they’re going to talk about later. For now, Patrick is listening. Which means that when Pete sings the familiar refrain, he just might get through. 

“I already told that you did that ages ago. This just makes official and gives me new jewelry.” 

The annoyance in Patrick’s voice is reassuring. “It's not just jewelry.” 

“Yeah, I know. It's better than jewelry. It's a fucking collar. Or cuffs. Or whatever you want me to have.”

“Whatever I want you to have,” Patrick repeats with reverence and no small amount of fear.

He’s heard that reverence before and with the memory comes the inspiration on with how to fix the fear part. It is, as his favorite supervillains like to say, sheer elegance in its simplicity. He lifts his face and says, “Yes sir. Please.” 

The words hit Patrick so hard that Pete can actually hear his breath catch in his throat and see the way his body rocks back a little. The look on his face would be something like hurt if there wasn’t so much want in it. “That's not fair.”

Neither is going to his knees on the carpet, but that doesn’t stop Pete from doing it. It's not the most graceful movement but Pete's gotten a lot of practice lately because on his knees Patrick's dick is at mouth level. There's no dick sucking involved this time, though. Just him looking up at Patrick with what he hopes are wide hopeful eyes. There’s probably a little bit of desperation in them too because just thinking about it is getting him hard. 

“Pete.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Pete,” Patrick says. His voice is two steps up and a jump to the right from his sex voice. Pete loves this voice. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to be good for you, sir.”

“Fuck good. You're fucking evil."

Pete sighs and drops his head. He knows what Patrick means but his knees hitting the ground got him halfway under and a rebuke's a fucking rebuke. “Sorry sir.” 

“No I didn't mean- You're good. Jesus, Pete you're so fucking good for me that sometimes it's hard to remember what a mouthy obnoxious shit you really are.”

Pete grins a little but doesn't lift his head. “Thank you, sir.”

Patrick just looks at him for the longest time. Pete can feel his eyes on him, boring through him and fucking God he has missed it so much. Without thinking he brings his hands back behind him and laces his fingers together at the small of his back. He hears Patrick take in a hissing breath and then fingers are under his chin, tipping his face up.

Patrick's eyes are dark and he's got a small smile on his lips and oh, yeah, this is better. This is everything Pete's been dying for. He can see it when Patrick's hand comes towards him to rake through his hair. The affection and possessiveness is almost as good as the contact and it's all Pete can do to not whimper like a fucking puppy. 

“I did miss you, my good boy,” Patrick murmurs.

“Sir,” Pete breathes out and damn, he really doesn’t know how he’s been getting along without this. Because the sex has been good. Awesome. Bed rocking, earth shaking, spine numbing levels of hot. But it’s not like this. It doesn't soothe that something deep in Pete's brain and chest that's always wound a little too tight. “Miss this so much, sir. Love you Patrick.”

Patrick's fingers freeze and he looks directly into Pete's eyes. Pete looks back, not sure what Patrick's looking for. Whatever it is, he'll find it. Pete's fairly sure. Fuck, he hopes. 

“You sure you want this? I don't...” Patrick breaks off. Pete can feel his hand twitch against his skin. “I kind of have something, Pete, if you're sure you want to be mine. Hey," he drops to a squat and moves his hand from Pete's hand to cup his face. “I want you to answer me. No sirs. Just me and you for a minute.”

“Okay.”

“Pete, are you sure? I can't do this if you don't realize what you’re getting yourself into."

“Do you need me to beg?” he asks. “You like it when I beg. I just don’t know how sure I need to be.” 

Patrick sighs, dropping to sit on the ground in front of him. “Pete, if we do this...” He gestures at Pete’s knees then up at his neck. “It’ll change things. You get that right? This wouldn't just be a sex thing anymore. If I turn it on like that, it won’t be something I'll be able to just turn off as soon as we both come and I untie you.”

Pete contemplates that for a second. “Would my safe word still work?”

“Yeah. It's just, there'd be more hold over. It's not exactly cut and dry. I don’t know where my lines are going to be. Or yours.” Patrick looks down and away from him for a moment, a little shy. “It's why I've never done it before. One of the reasons, anyway.”

“We'll figure it out. I trust you.”

Patrick laughs and shakes his head. “You shouldn't. I don’t trust me.”

That makes no sense at all. Pete can feel his eyebrows scrunching up in confusion. Patrick’s the most trustworthy human being he knows. “Why?”

“Because you make me lose control,” he says, casting his eyes around like he’s looking for a safe place to fix his expression because he’s too ashamed to meet Pete’s gaze. He looks so fucking young that Pete wonders if Patrick hasn’t aged backwards right in front of him. “When you asked me to I tore your back open with a belt. Give me more time; what the fuck do you think is going to happen?” There’s genuine fear in his expression, old and ugly mixing with the new possibility of failure and disaster. 

“You'll get better with the belt,” Pete says without thinking. Patrick actually winces and he regrets it the second it comes out of his mouth. “That came out wrong.”

That doesn’t seem to help. If anything Patrick gets even paler. "Pete-“

"It's okay,” Pete says, leaning into Patrick's hand. “It's awesome. I like to hurt. You like to hurt me. It's like the kink fairy came down and waved her magic wand and granted our wishes or something.”

Patrick eyes him skeptically. “The kink fairy.”

“Yeah you know. Imagine a magical being that hooks up kinky people with their fetish matches. She probably works for Cupid, like a specialist.”

Patrick stares at him for a second. “I'm getting you a gag. That’ll be a big perk of this. I can fucking gag you when you start the crazytalk.”

Pete can't help the groan that escapes his lips. “God, please.”

Patrick chuckles briefly and his thumb drags over Pete's thumb. “You're still so fucking needy.”

“Always,” Pete agrees, the drugged feeling settling into his bones a little deeper. “I think it's genetic.”

Patrick sobers at that. Pete tries to focus as his eyes go serious. “Promise me something.”

“What?”

“Promise me you'll let me know what you need, especially if it’s to stop. If you don't I can't. I know you trust me but I need to know I can trust you too okay?”

“You don't?”

“Not on this. Pete, you've got no idea where your limits are. Still.”

“I'm not into watersports or scat. That's just gross. Trust me." He still regrets the whole Release the Bats thing. There’s absolutely nothing sexy about that. It seems like a reasonable line to him. 

“I'm serious, Pete."

“I am too. It’s a hard limit."

Patrick rolls his eyes. “Stop fucking around and listen to me."

Pete pulls back a little and frowns at him. “You're seriously going to lecture me about listening? Really?”

“That's not the same. I wasn't in danger of breaking you with that.”

“Just my heart and, like, the most important relationship in my whole life. But it’s not like that matters or anything.”

“You're not still mad?”

“I'm not. I'm just kind of annoyed that you think this is even close to that. I mean, yeah it’s violent but do you even listen to yourself when you talk to me like this?” Pete asks. Patrick's expression answers the question for him. Pete leans back into his hand. “No one's been as gentle with me in my entire fucking life as you.”

“That’s because you’ve never been gentle with yourself for five seconds in your whole life,” Patrick says, old annoyance seeping into his words. “I’m surprised you can even recognize it.”

“Yeah, well someone convinced me to go to therapy. Six months with Dr. Morgan and I can out feel you any day.”

Patrick smiles a little but it’s tenuous. It looks like it’s getting ready to escape right off his face. “I’m glad you’re doing better. I try not to talk about it. I don’t want-“ He rocks back a little and purses his lips. “I’m trying not to push.”

“But that’s kind of what we do. We push each other.”

“You mean you push me.”

“No. I would’ve said that,” Pete sighs, sitting back on his heels. This is not the most comfortable place or position to have this talk but he’s not going to complain. At least the talk’s happening. “Patrick, your pushing got me into therapy. I’m like almost, kind of, sort of on my way to being moderately sane.”

Patrick gives him a look that’d make Mikey Way proud with his deadpan incredulity. “You’re not.” 

“Okay,” Pete agrees, meeting Patrick’s gaze with a grin. “No, but you have to admit, I’m a lot better at articulating my insanity than I was. And speaking of articulating shit – I’d like to go on record that when I needed to get out, I did.”

That seems to catch Patrick off guard. “What?”

“I safe worded out,” Pete says, trying not to let himself go back there. 

They’ve moved forward. Far, far forward. Mostly. And what wasn’t, they were working through. The bullshit baggage was pretty much in the past and all the hurt and shit that went with it. He could just focus on the important details. 

“The only time I’ve ever really needed to stop, I said so. So I don’t know what you’re so worried about. If I have a fucking problem, I tell you. The precedent’s in my favor.”

That hit lands because Patrick pulls his hand off Pete’s face and his gaze seems to turn inward. “Precedent.” 

“Yep,” Pete replies as Patrick’s tongue darts out to wet his lips in a nervous movement. Pete follows the path with his eyes. He likes being able to watch. He may even be developing a _thing_ for watching Patrick.

“I- Fuck. Fuck, Pete.”

“Yeah.”

Patrick stands up and looks down at Pete a little stunned. It’s kind of dorky looking on Patrick but that _really_ works for Pete because when he speaks, his voice comes out rough and unconsciously pitched a little lower than normal. “Stay. Can you stay there, like that for awhile?”

Pete tilts his head and comes up on his knees. “Is it an order?”

He’s considering it. Patrick doesn’t usually rush into decisions. He’s an overthinker in a completely different way from Pete. Pete tends to obsess after he does something. Patrick does his obsessing before. He’s doing it on fast-forward right now, and Pete can see pros and cons flickering behind his eyes. He’s known him that long and that well.

Pete makes a move that could either push him over into doing it or send him running. “Sir?” he asks, calculated but sincere. It’s a huge gamble but either way, they’ll be getting somewhere. 

“Yes,” Patrick says and something changes. It’s small, mostly in the line of Patrick’s shoulders and the set of his mouth and there’s a hint of depth to his voice maybe. But there’s definitely a difference all of a sudden. It’s kind of cool to watch. 

It’s also ridiculously hot, like confident stage Patrick and bossy controlling Patrick merging together into something better, stronger, more secure. Pete just wants to stare forever.

“Stay,” Patrick says again, point at the ground for emphasis. “Don’t get up. Don’t unlock your hands.”

Pete settles into the posture and nods. He can so do that. He _wants_ to do that, and anything else Patrick tells him to. “Yes sir.” 

“If you need to rest you can bend at the waist, put your forehead on the carpet and rest your hands on the back of your neck. But don’t move your legs.”

“Yes sir.” 

“I’ll come back in a little while. Don’t get up while I’m gone.” Patrick says. Then he walks out of the room, leaving Pete, on the floor of the living room, in his jeans and a Threadless t-shirt, waiting. 

It’s on the tip of Pete’s tongue to call out and ask how long he’s going to be gone. To ask where he’s going but he clamps the impulse down because fuck, who cares? He doesn’t. He’s too busy trying to keep his skin from jumping off his body with excitement. 

He can wait. He can. He’s got practice. And this is easier because he can run his eyes over the posters and pictures on Patrick’s wall, count them, run over the conversation in his head. 

Eventually though, he gets tired of trying to distract himself and plants his face on the ground, hands resting on the back of his neck. It feels better that way. Folded up and face down, it’s more familiar. Almost dark. It’s like having the blindfold only better because if he wants to see, he can. With a smaller focus, it’s easier to get where he needs to be.

Time runs away from him and Pete doesn’t realize until he hears footsteps how much he missed the sensation of being fluid, loose. It’s not as good as being tied down but it’s a near fucking thing and he’s almost boneless when Patrick drops down beside him and rests a hand on his spine. Pete doesn’t purr like a kitten. He just wants to.

“Pete, I want you to get up for me now. Keep your fingers locked.” Patrick’s fingers wrap around his upper arm, just above the elbow. “I’m going to help you. Ready?”Pete lifts his head and nods. “Up,” Patrick orders. His fingers push into Pete skin and he puts his strength into clambering to his feet with no hands. It’s tricky but the very action, the complexity and specificity of it, lulls him deeper. 

Patrick doesn’t let go of his arm as they make their way down the hallway. He guides with pressure and Pete follows like a dance partner to Patrick’s bedroom. 

There’s nothing particularly special set up, Pete notes as he makes his way to the bed. No candles or any flowery shit. There’s just a small stack of black leather items, and a hint of silver metal, piled up on the nightstand. He can’t see anything clearly but he’s grinning like an idiot when Patrick orders him to strip and kneel on the bed.

Patrick stands in front of him, feet firmly planted on the floor. “What are you smiling at?” he asks, looking curious and amused over that quiet power that makes Pete happy to drop and worship at Patrick’s feet. 

Pete licks his lips and tilts his head to the side. “Just you, sir. I’ve always wanted to see this.”

“Yeah?” Patrick asks, softening but losing none of the strength in his tone. “What do you want to see?”

Pete isn’t good with choices right now. Well, he’s not great at choices ever but especially not when he’s got Patrick to make them for him like this. “Anything. Everything. Whatever you want me to see, sir.”

“And if I want you to see that you’re mine?” he asks. There’s weight in the question that makes Pete’s breath catch and his mind stutter and crash.

“Yeah,” Pete whispers. “Yes, Patrick, please.”

Patrick freezes and so does Pete, realizing what he’s done. He braces himself for the slap, almost welcomes it. It doesn’t come. Patrick’s just staring at him, looking at him like his face has the answer to a question. 

“Sorry,” Pete says as soon as his brain catches up with the slip. “Sorry, sir. I just want to be this for you so fucking much it made me stupid, sir, I’m sorry. ”

“No hey.” Patrick’s touching him again, hand on his neck, his thumb resting over Pete’s Adam’s apple. “It’s okay. I’ll answer to that here too.” Patrick looks down at Pete and he smiles, just a little. “They’re both me.”

“Yeah they are, Patrick,” Pete says, his face hurting with smiling back. He doesn’t know what the hell it is that made Patrick get it but he doesn’t care. He’s finally gotten through. It’s Christmas, his birthday, and inspiration all it once. “I really like calling you sir though.” 

“I do too.” Patrick chuckles a little. Then he shakes his head at him. It’s familiar. It’s a non-verbal _oh, Pete_. He likes it in the new context. 

“Patrick?”

“Yes, good boy?”

Pete shudders and doesn’t bother to hide it. “Can you do something now? I'd really like to be reminded what it feels like to be owned by you.”

Patrick nods but he lets go of Pete and steps back. Pete doesn’t move, as much as he wants to. He keeps his eyes locked on Patrick as he picks something off the top of the pile of black leather. It looks like a thick unremarkable strip until Patrick returns, holding it up in front of him. 

Half a foot from his face, Pete can see that it’s a collar. Simple in design, two inches thick with a buckle and an O ring in what will be the front when it’s closed. It looks soft. It looks like it would cover the majority of his neck. It looks like it would be awkward to wear. If Patrick put it on and hooked his finger through the loop, he could drag Pete anywhere.

“Patrick,” Pete breathes. He’s surprised and he doesn’t know why. Maybe because he didn’t think he’d actually get a collar when he asked for it earlier. He hadn’t let himself hope Patrick would have one.

“I found it in this shop when we were in Amsterdam on tour a couple of years ago and I just-“ He laughs and a hint of shyness that makes him look like the boy who used to have stage fright flashes across his face. “I saw it and I didn’t have anyone to give it to. I think I just liked the idea of it. But I couldn’t leave without it, so maybe it was always for you.”

“It’s beautiful, Patrick,” Pete says, hungry eyes locked on the thick strap. He wants to feel it on his skin, wrapped around his neck in a sign proclaiming that he _belonged_ to someone, to Patrick. “Can I have it sir? Please?”

“It’s not for all the time.” Patrick looks down at the collar, twisting it between his hands. “It’s too big. We’ll have to get you one you could wear to sleep in.”

“Or in public,” Pete blurts out and Patrick’s eyes go huge. They seem to take up his whole face, blue-green edged out by his expanding pupils. 

Then he catches Pete across the right cheek with his open palm. It’s not all that hard. Patrick’s hit him harder in other scenes. But he’s never had the chance to see it coming before. It still manages to be unexpected and Pete gets hard almost instantly. He missed this, the sting, the check, the reminder. He skips a breath as his face stings in the best way.

“You can call me Patrick or sir, Pete,” Patrick tells him, almost gently. “But you can’t drop the titles without permission. Not without a punishment. Not now and not ever when you’ve got your collar on.”

 _His collar_. Pete shivers at the thought and he ducks his head a little, enough to convey submission. He doesn’t go far enough that he has to look away though. He’s not missing a second of this. “Sorry, Patrick.”

“You didn’t realize,” Patrick replies, breathless. “Don’t forget again.”

He rubs the skin of Pete’s cheek and Pete has to fight the urge to press into it like a cat. Patrick’s cheeks are red and so is his neck. Pete can almost taste his sweaty skin as he nuzzles his hand. “Yes, Patrick.”

Patrick pulls his hand back from Pete’s skin and worries the leather between his fingers again. “Do you really want a collar to wear in public?”

“Fuck yes, sir.” Pete replies. It’s an effort not to move. The mere thought makes him want to reach out for Patrick. He would if he’d been given permission.

Pete can almost imagine it. Whatever Patrick would pick for him would probably be something thin and leather with a small buckle that could pass as a choker. Maybe it’d have a small ring of some kind. He’s never been on a leash but he likes the idea that Patrick could put him on one if he wants to. 

Pete clenches his fists because it’s hot, yeah, but that’s not all there is to it. There’s also something kind of comforting about the idea of having a collar he could wear in front of everyone. It would be like Pete was held, all the time, by Patrick’s ownership and love. And he wants that, so fucking badly he can’t fucking stand it.

So he begs. He begs and he watches Patrick smirk at him in triumph and cave at the same time. He reaches out and finally, finally, fucking finally wraps the thick, heavy, soft leather around Pete’s neck.

When Patrick buckles it in the back, Pete feels everything unlock, his joints and muscles and something in his chest that’s been squeezing his ribcage around his heart since he realized that his Dom and Patrick were one and the same. They’re still one in the same only now, they’re both his. And vice versa. 

Patrick’s fingers trace the place where skin and leather meet just below his chin. “You are so fucking beautiful. You’re beautiful and you’re mine. You’re fucking mine. Jesus God, do you have any idea, Pete?”

Pete nods in agreement even though it was probably rhetorical. “You’re stuck with me, Patrick.”

“Good thing I love you then, huh?”

“Yes sir,” Pete practically moans. 

Patrick doesn’t say anything else as he wraps the leather cuffs around Pete’s wrists. They’re like gentle hands gripping him and Pete holds them out in front of them, waiting. Patrick doesn’t let him down. He pulls a familiar thin chain off the night stand, leaving nothing on the countertop but a long black stick and threads it through the loops in the cuffs.

Pete wonders for a moment what Patrick’s going to chain him to. His bed isn’t really built for bondage. But instead he connects both ends of the short chain to the ring in the front of Pete’s collar with trigger clips. The whole arrangement gives about two feet for either hand to move at a time. It keeps him tucked in on himself, confined but not immobile. He can move but he can’t forget for one second that he’s bound. He gives Patrick a tentative smile before he ducks his head again. “Thank you, Patrick.”

Patrick tilts his head to the side and studies him, like Pete’s a rearranged chord progression he’s going over in his head. He licks his lower lip, straightens his head and the nods. “Get to the center of the headboard, face it, and hang on for me.”

Getting there is slower than it should be considering Pete only has to cover about four feet. But with his hands chained to his neck, moving on his knees is awkward. He can’t rush. 

It feels almost like being on the cross when he curls his fingers over the polished wood of Patrick’s headboard. Almost, if you can discount the fact that the overhead lamp fills the room in pale-yellow-white light, and the difference in position. Like this, Pete can twist his neck around to look behind him.

Turning makes him acutely aware of the collar. It presses against the underside of his jaw and brushes his chin. He can’t forget for a second that it’s there. 

Like this he can see Patrick. He’s picking up the last item off the nightstand as Pete turns to look. It’s a black stick with long strips of leather trailing off it. It’s a fucking flogger. Maybe the same one Patrick used on him back in November. He’s trailing the strands over his hand, studying them, ignoring Pete as he contemplates the tool. 

Pete recognizes the expression on his face. Patrick focuses on music like that. He focuses on writing and producing with the same intensity. Only this time that focus is narrowed in on him and what Patrick plans to do to him. And Pete gets to watch.

So yeah, this is infinitely better than the club. 

Especially when Patrick brings the flogger down hard on his own bare left arm. He didn’t realize that Patrick did that- tested it out on himself. It makes sense, but seeing how much Patrick cares that he’s okay, that he can take it, undoes Pete even more. At this rate, he’s going to have no bones when this is over. He’s fucking giddy at the prospect.

Patrick looks up then, catching him staring and smiles. It’s not calculated or controlled or any of the things the Dom/mes in the porn he’s gotten a hold of seem to possess. It’s just Patrick, grinning at him like he does when Pete manages to get something right. Pete wants to smile back but he can’t breathe so he just keeps on staring. 

“Ready?” he asks, pulling the strands of the flogger through his left hand. It makes Pete think of Patrick’s hand stroking his back, his side, his cock. And Patrick fucking knows it.

“Yes, sir.”

“This isn’t a punishment,” Patrick says, leaning in close to him and teasing the soft tips of the leather over his hands. Then he drags them up Pete’s right arm, up over the Nightmare sleeve. “You don’t have to be quiet and you don’t have to keep count. I may give you a reward if you can keep track of how many for me though,” He drags them up over Pete’s shoulder then down over his back. “But you don’t have to. You just have to take it.”

Pete shivers when the soft sensation disappears. He feels the bed bounce a little as Patrick climbs up behind him. Pete takes a deep breath but it doesn’t help. 

When the flogger lands on his shoulders, Pete’s still unprepared. Impact knocks the air out of his lungs the same as the first thrust of a good, hard fuck. But the stinging buzz that starts to build is a totally different animal. He’s missed it so badly that by the sixth or seventh blow he’s a shaking mess. 

He keeps track of the blows and he hangs on to the headboard to keep from falling apart completely. The strands of the flogger hit his back, his shoulders, his ass, the backs of his legs. They’re not regular enough for Pete to ever really forget how bad it hurts. Instead it keeps everything so intense that there’s no room for anything else. In the twenties somewhere, Pete finds himself diving into the white space where there’s nothing in his brain but pain and silence.

It’s an echo of the first time, only he’s resting his face against the wood of the bedframe and breathing in the smell of Patrick’s bed. He can hear his own cries over the slap-snap of the flogger landing on his skin. 

His eyes drift shut but he forces them open again. The empty space is calling to him as he bathes in hot pain but he can’t go under yet. He needs to see first. He needs to see what Patrick looks like when does this. The beating is cleansing. It’s familiar. It wraps around him like an embrace because this is how Patrick loves him and Pete can’t sink without seeing first.

He makes himself turn his head when Patrick stops to rub the abused skin. He rests his ear against the wall and digs his fingers in like the wood will give. He doesn’t twist the rest of the way until Patrick picks the flogger back up and hits him again. 

Patrick’s eyes are dark and the muscles in his arms pulse and move. His face is wet with sweat, like he’s been standing under stage lights for an hour. He’s looking back at Pete like he’s making art with every blow. And maybe he is. It feels like Patrick’s making him into something beautiful, or at the very least, something pure. 

Pete watches as Patrick licks a bead of sweat off his upper lip then smile at what has to be a lattice of stripes on his back and that’s it. That’s all it takes for Pete to fall a little more in love with him. He didn’t know he could do that, but hey, it turns out there’s always farther to fall. 

He rests his cheek on the bed frame, his chains clicking against the wood as he rides the flogging into the quiet, white, nothing space. It’s like an orgasm that goes on forever. Pain or pleasure, he can’t tell and doesn’t care because it feels. It just fucking feels so much that he’s crying and laughing and mumbling Patrick’s name over and over like it’s a prayer. 

He’s so far gone he doesn’t even realize it’s stopped until Patrick presses himself tight against Pete’s back and puts his hand over his mouth. “Shh, easy,” he whispers, his lips at Pete’s ear. “I’ve got you, Pete. Easy.” 

Pete lets out a muffled whine at the sensation of Patrick’s t-shirt scraping against his raw back. He feels boneless and breathless and like Patrick’s weight is the only thing holding him together. Maybe it is. He sags against the headboard for a moment before Patrick’s arm wraps around his waist. Then he lets Patrick hold him steady instead.

“Did you keep track?” Patrick asks in a conversational tone, dropping his hand away from Pete’s mouth finally. He nuzzles the side of Pete’s face and Pete presses into it. “It’s okay if you didn’t. You were such a good boy for me.”

“Yes. No. Kind of,” Pete mumbles. He feels high and he can see Patrick’s hair and the side of his mouth out of the corner of his eye. He’s not really clear right now, but it’s okay. Patrick’s got him. “I got to fifty-six then-” he lets out a breath that feels shaky. “I left.”

“I saw.” Patrick’s hand caresses the other side of his face, thumb stroking over his cheekbone. “You’re gorgeous in subspace, Pete. You just take and take and take and you turn it into something amazing. Fifty-six’s so good. And good boys get rewards. You want a reward, don’t you?”

Pete makes a little asking noise in the back of his throat and Patrick kisses his cheek. This is good. This is really awesome. But he’s also a greedy attention whore and he’s never been able to say no when he’s offered something good. He nods, brushing against Patrick as he did so.

“You can have anything I can give you as your reward for being so good for me, Pete,” Patrick says, hot breath fanning across Pete’s face. “What can I give you?”

It takes Pete a long time to find words. He wouldn’t have anything to ask for if he weren’t still hard enough to cut glass, if he didn’t have that craving for that _finally_ still lurking in his brain. He licks his lips and tips his head back to rest on Patrick’s shoulder and tilts his head so he can get a half decent view of Patrick’s face. “Patrick, can you fuck me?”

Patrick’s quiet for a moment then says, “You mean like this.” He drops the arm on his stomach down to cover Pete’s cock, not squeezing just touching Pete, enough to make him moan in the back of his throat. “You want me to fuck you like this, on your knees from behind with your back still hot. Don’t you?”

“Fuck, Patrick, yes.”

“I have to grab the lube,” Patrick says as he eases away from Pete. “Stay here. Don’t move.” He covers Pete’s bound wrist with his hand. “Don’t let go. Watch me, I’m right here.”

And Pete does. He hangs on as Patrick rolls to the edge of the bed and jerks open the nightstand. If he could think, Pete would wish that he’d pushed the whole getting tested thing harder as Patrick struggles with a condom wrapper. He can’t though. All he can do is what he’s been told.

Patrick doesn’t even bother to get undressed. He just covers his cock and moves back behind him. Pete hisses a little as cold, wet fingers press against him then slide inside but he doesn’t even flinch. He’s limp everywhere but his own aching cock and it’s easy to be pliant as Patrick pulls his fingers free and fucks into him in one smooth thrust.

He moans, long and low pulled directly from the back of his throat. He doesn’t move. He just lets Patrick make him feel good, fucking him in hard deep strokes that make Pete see a whole different kind of stars as the shirt he’s wearing rubs against his raw skin.

He reaches around with his right hand and takes Pete’s cock in his hand. Pete makes a thin noise but doesn’t thrust into it. He’s happy to be used. 

“Mine, Pete. You’re so mine,” Patrick hisses as he fucks him a little harder. Then he slides two fingers under the thick strap of the collar on the side towards the back. It tightens the leather so that it presses against the front of Pete’s throat and chokes him, just a little. 

That little extra pressure, Patrick’s voice, his hand, his cock, his chains and his leather around Pete’s wrists and throat they’re too much all together. Pete comes so hard that he thinks he’s going blind for a second because he forgets his eyes are squeezed shut. He comes back to himself clinging to the headboard, shaking in the loose embrace of Patrick’s left arm, which isn’t tightening his collar anymore. 

“Let go, good boy.” The order is firm but gentle and Pete tries. But his hands aren’t working. “It’s okay. Let go now, Pete. I’ve got you,” Pete manages to get his fingers to release and collapses back onto Patrick, eyes still shut.

Patrick lowers them both to lie on their sides on the bed and pulls out. Pete makes a small sound of protest but Patrick shushes him. He rolls Pete onto his back and unclips the chain attaching the cuffs to the collar then moves each of Pete’s hands off their position tucked up to his chest to rest against the bed. He kisses the palm of each before setting them down and Pete feels like he’s floating. 

“Pete,” Patrick says, resting his left hand on his chest to get his attention. “Pete, can you hear me? I need you to open your eyes for me. That’s an order, open them.” 

Pete does and Patrick’s leaned over him, like Hemmy when he wants attention almost. Pete gives him an endorphin-doped smile. “Hi, Patrick.”

Patrick smiles back. “Hi yourself. Pete, I know you’re comfortable but you’re a mess and you need to get cleaned up and fed so you don’t drop.”

“You didn’t come,” Pete muses on a yawn. Then adds belatedly, “Sir.”

“Yeah, I did. You just missed it. You were distracted. Pete, listen, I need you to count for me now all right?”

Panic floods Pete, cold and rank. His arms feel leaden but he forces one up to grip the front of Patrick’s shirt.“Patrick, Patrick no. Please, I was good. I tried to be good. You collared me. You can’t-“

“Hey, stop.” Patrick presses two fingers to Pete’s mouth, effectively silencing him. 

They’re a little sticky. Patrick couldn’t have had time to do more than wipe them off on the bedspread after Pete came on his hand but Pete doesn’t care. He opens his lips on impulse and the memory of old orders, and sucks the digits into his mouth hoping that he can avoid this, distract him. 

Patrick’s breath stutters for a second but then he pulls his hand away. He shakes his head and sits back. “No, listen to me.”

“You can’t leave,” Pete says and fuck. He’s on the verge of tears and he knows it. He’s too raw for this. His hopes are too high. “It’s different now, you can’t fucking leave.”

“I’m not leaving.” Patrick replies, catching Pete’s hand in his and squeezing, hard. “I’m not going to be that stupid again. I just need to get you out of this.” He lifts Pete’s hand in front of his face and sets to work on the buckle on the cuff. 

Oh. Pete goes practically boneless with relief. Then he frowns and tilts his head on the mattress as Patrick sets his hand down and moves to the other one. “Then why-“

“I can’t lift you,” Patrick replies, cutting him off before he can finish the thought. “I can’t drag you to the bathroom and you need more than just a sponge down. I need to get you something to eat too, and I can’t do both if you’re going to fall down, so I‘m going to give you a count to focus.” He reaches for the collar and stops, not undoing the buckle. “I’m going to get you into the shower and you’re going to count to five hundred and you’re not going to pass out on me until you get to the end. You can do that for me.” He moves for the buckle then, lifting Pete’s neck and undoing it with nimble fingers. “I know you can. You don’t have to think about anything, you just have to stay awake and do what I tell you while you’re counting.”

“Five hundreds a lot, sir.”

Patrick laughs. “Yeah, well, you’re a thirty year old man, and I think you can handle it. And you can drop the titles now, Pete, so long as you keep obeying.”

“Okay.” 

“Five hundred. Slow.”

Pete nods and starts counting, out loud, in a slow even beat like keeping time as Patrick pulls him out of bed and into the bathroom. The shower is quick but thorough and hey, naked and wet together is never a bad thing, even as wrung out as Pete feels. Patrick uses antibacterial hand soap on Pete’s back instead of the bar stuff. That whole process only takes him to two hundred and five. 

There’s a stack of Pete’s clothing in one of Patrick’s drawers. Pete lets Patrick dress him before easing him into bed. Pete notes that there’s still come stuck to the wood of the headboard about a foot up from the pillows. Pete can see it from the one he’s lying on. Pete giggles at the sight and wonders if it’s part of the clean up Patrick wants to do so badly.

“Focus on counting,” Patrick says, following his gaze to the stain and shaking his head a little. “Don’t sleep. I’m going to get you something to eat.”

“Not hungry.” Pete tugs back the covers and holds out a hand. “You should get in here with me.”

“Keep counting.” It’s got a hint of steel beneath it and Pete doesn’t protest as Patrick disappears. He comes back a fifty count later with a peanut butter sandwich and a can of Coke. “Couldn’t find jelly. Sit up and eat,” he orders.

Pete does. This is easy. He can do this. And the sooner he eats, the sooner he can get Patrick out of his towel and wrapped around him like he should be. He makes a display of chewing and swallowing and chugging the Coke, even though it’s the caffeine free diet kind. Then he sticks out his tongue, sinks down and says, “Four-hundred-ninety-seven, four-hundred-ninety-eight, four-hundred-ninety-nine, five hundred. Patrick, you should get in bed with me.”

Patrick sighs but doesn’t hesitate. He just waves a hand at Pete. He scoots over and when Patrick gets between the sheets, Pete curls around him. Patrick reaches back, draping an arm over his stomach.

There’s no way to turn off the lights like this so Pete doesn’t even try to sleep. He just lies there, breathing in and out against the skin of Patrick’s shoulder, his thoughts drifting back. They’re slow and sluggish, but they’re in better order than they were before. Everything’s clearer now, realigned.

“Realigning means we’re going to have to figure out some stuff out. Rules, boundaries. We need to set some serious boundaries and write, like, an entire book of rules,” Patrick says.

Pete didn’t realize he’d said it out loud. He’s kind of glad he did though because he’s excited about the prospects it’s brought up. He likes the idea of working this out, spending time on the logistics. They’ve never done that. He wants to though. Really, he does. He wants to find out where this begins and ends and how everything works. It’s like a whole different kind of exploration that is a strangely perfect fit in this fumbling dive into couplehood. 

“We’ll figure it out,” he declares, snuggling closer. “This is right, Patrick. It fucking feels right to me. Doesn’t it feel right to you?”

Silence hangs in the air and Pete thinks he’s going to say no. Instead he squeezes him a little closer and nods. “Yeah, it does. It’s just kind of big.”

“We’re good at big. It fits.”

“If it doesn’t yet, it will when we get it all hammered out,” Patrick agrees. 

He traces through the hair on Patrick’s chest and thinks about things that fit. He thinks about the way the collar had felt and the way this feels, battered and sated and peaceful for the first time in months. “Patrick?”

“Hm?”

“Could I have the cuffs maybe, to sleep in?” Pete doesn’t look up as he asks, feeling shy about this whole thing for the first time since he walked nervously up to that second dungeon master and asked for help being tied down. “Just until we can get something smaller than that collar.”

Patrick answers by rolling away from him. Pete’s starting to get a grip on the corner of his brain that freaks out when Patrick responds by doing something rather than speaking. It’s not something he used to be attuned to, before Patrick pulling away started to really mean something. Pete gets a tighter hold on it every time he comes back though. This time he doesn’t go far, just to the edge of the bed, grabbing the cuffs off the night stand. 

He flicks off the lights before coming back and Pete stays where he is and tries not to let his nerves show through the relative darkness. It’s stupid, after everything, that he’s nervous now. This is just them, together like they’ve been for the last few months. 

Only he’s holding up his hands so that Patrick can buckle the cuffs around his wrists, owning him even as they lie together. The black leather stands out against Patrick’s pale skin when Pete rests his hand on his chest again. The light they left on in the bathroom provides just enough light to see it through the thick shadows.

Pete sinks into the feeling of being secure, anchored. He feels settled and it’s a relief so intense, it’s almost pleasure. 

“Now it fits,” Patrick says, wrapping his hand around Pete’s wrist, covering the cuff and brushing skin. Pete curls closer and nods. He doesn’t need to answer out loud. They both know they’ll get everywhere from here.

(end)


End file.
